PIB Copenhagen 100

Per Sanderhage

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

English version
Byron Erickson

PIB Copenhagen A/S

Under udarbejdelsen af denne bog har mange bidraget med oplysninger om firmaets historie og
forholdene omkring det. Jeg vil derfor gerne takke Philipp Plon, Jørgen Sonnergaard og Paul
Schiøtt, alle tidligere PIB-medarbejdere, Steen Rønn, Vendsyssel Tidende, Sidney Goldberg,
United Media, Brad Bushell, Paws, Anders Hjort-Jørgensen, Tegneseriemuseet i Danmark, Pia
Christensen, Forlaget Carlsen og alle de andre nuværende og tidligere kollegaer, der i årenes løb
har fortalt om PIBs fortid.

Many people have kindly supplied information to this book. I would like to thank Philipp Plon,
Jørgen Sonnergaard and Paul Schiøtt, all formerly PIB-employees, Steen Rønn, Vendsyssel
Tidende, Sidney Goldberg, United Media, Brad Bushell, Paws, Anders Hjort-Jørgen, the Danish
Comics Museum in Denmark, Pia Christensen, Carlsen Publishing and all the present and
former collegaues, who during theyears have told about PIB's past.

Per Sanderhage

Vimmelskaftet, den 14. april, 1999

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Skrevet af/written by Per Sanderhage

Engelsk oversættelse/English Translation by Byron Erickson

Layout & produktion/Layout & production PIB Copenhagen A/S

Forsidefoto/Coverphoto Kristian Jakobsen

Trykt hos Idé Grafik

Oplag/ Gradation 1.500

© PIB Copenhagen 1999

ISBN: 87-987360-0-0

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

FORORD

100 år er ikke lang tid, set med tidens øjne. Men
perioden fra 1899 til 1999 har for PIB været en lang og
spændende periode. Det er gået op, og det er gået
ned, men sådan må det nødvendigvis være i en
verden og en branche, der hele tiden er i udvikling.

Hvem henvender denne bog sig så til? Først og
fremmest til alle de mennesker, der har med PIB at
gøre i hverdagen, og som interesserer sig for den del
af pressehistorien, som PIB har været en del af.

Det har ikke været meningen at skrive en egentlig
analyse af pressebureauernes rolle i vores del af
verden gennem disse 100 år... end ikke vores egen.

Det ville være er et regulært forskningsprojekt, som
ligger uden for denne jubilæumsbogs rammer.

Bogen giver en oversigt over firmaets historie og
hvordan vores branche har ændret sig i takt med de
ændrede forhold i medieverdenen.

PIB udviklede sig fra at sælge "lånte" illustrationer
og historier til salg af ophavsretsligt beskyttet
materiale fra nogle af verdens største navne inden for
vores felt - tegneserier, tekstfeatures, krydsord,
horoskoper og andet underholdende stof til især de
nordiske og tyske medier.

Jeg tør godt vove den påstand her i vores
jubilæumsår, at vi har handlet med over 90 % af alle
nuværende og tidligere medier i Danmark, Norge,
Sverige, Finland, Island, Grønland, Færøerne og
Tyskland, samt en hel del medier i resten af Europa,
USA og resten af verden.

Der har aldrig været stille på PIB, hverken når Piet
Heins, Selma Lagerlofs eller Peter Freuchens værker
skulle udbredes, og kontorerne har tit genlydt af
latter, når vi modtager striberne fra Charles M.

Schulz, Jim Davis og Scott Adams. Også danske tegne-
serie-ekvilibrister som Jørgen Mogensen, Cosper,
Qvist, Gettermann, Carla og Vilhelm Hansen,

FOREWORD

100 years is not such a long spån of time, seen in an
historical perspective. But the period from 1899 to
1999 has for PIB been a long and exciting century. It
has gone up hili and it has gone down hiil, but that’s
the way it necessarily is in a world, and an industry,
that’s constantly evolving.

So who is this book intended for? First and foremost,
for all of the people who are involved with PIB on a
daily basis, and for those who take an interest in that
fraction of the press’ history that PIB has been a part
of.

It hasn’t been our intention to write a proper analysis
of the press bureaus’ role in this part of the world
throughout the last 100 years — not even our own
press bureau’s. That would take a regular research
project, one that lies outside the scope of this
anniversary book.

This book gives an overview of the company’s history
and of how our industry has changed in step with
changing conditions in the media industry.

PIB developed itself from selling “borrowed”
illustrations and stories to selling copyright-protected
material from some of the world’s greatest names in
their fields — comics, text features, crossword puzzles,
horoscopes, and other entertainment features —
especially to the Nordic and German media.

It has never been quiet at PIB, not when Piet Hein’s,
Selma Lagerlof’s, or Peter Freuchen’s work was being
distributed; and the offices have often rung with
laughter when we received strips from Charles M.
Schulz, Jim Davis, and Scott Adams. Also Danish
comic-strip acrobats such as Jørgen Mogensen,

Cosper, Qvist, Gettermann, Carla and Vilhelm Hansen,
Storm R, Carsten Graabæk, Henrik Rehr, Peter
Heydenreich, and Torben Osted have stubbornly
exercised the laugh muscles of PIB’s employees.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Storm E, Carsten Graabæk, Henrik Rehr, Peter
Heydenreich og Torben Osted har til stadighed motio-
neret lattermusklerne hos PIBs ansatte. Og igennem
disse 100 år har vi sørget for, at andre også har haft
lejlighed til at tage del i morskaben.

Formidlingen sker i dag fortrinsvis digitalt og ofte i
farver, og også på disse områder er vi med helt
fremme. Vi har altid forsøgt at levere ganske som
vores kunder ønsker det. Det manglede også bare!

At overleve i denne branche er ikke nemt. På PIB er
held og dygtighed gået hånd i hånd, og i dag repræ-
senterer vi verdens bedste tegneserier, så fremtiden
ser fornuftig ud.

Men selv det bedste materiale ville ikke have ført
os gennem de første 100 år, uden dygtige medar-
bejdere. Og de medarbejdere vi har i dag er dygtige,
flittige, servicemindede og ikke mindst både
motiverede og motiverende. Så der er al mulig grund
til at bringe en stor tak til alle nuværende og tidligere
medarbejdere.

Claes Voss
Adm. direktør

And throughout these 100 years, we have made sure
that others also got the opportunity to share in the
fun.

These days, the laughter is passed on mainly digitally
and often in color, and also in these areas are we the
forefront. We’ve always tried to deliver exactly in the
form our customers want.

To survive in this business is not easy. At PIB, luck
and competence have gone hånd in hånd, and since
we represent the world’s hest comics today, the future
looks bright.

But even the hest material would not have taken us
through the first 100 years of our history without
skilied employees. And those we have today are
skilied, energetic, service-minded, and last but not
least, both motivated and motivating. So there is every
reason to say a loud “Thank you!” to all our current
and past employees.

Claes Voss
Managing Director

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

1899 1899

“Om hundrede år er alting glemt,” sang Carl Søeborg i
1809, og det skal indrømmes at meget ER blevet
glemt i de 100 år, PIB har eksisteret. Faktisk var selv
dato og årstal for firmaets grundlæggelse forsvundet i
fortidens tåge, og vi kan takke Jyllands-Posten for at
have gjort os opmærksom på, at det var den 6. maj
1899, den da 24-årige Hjalmar Carlsen registrerede
Presse-Illustrations-Bureau og Carlsen Clichéfabrik.

1899 var en anden tid og et meget anderledes sted.
På Zar Nikolaj 2. s opfordring grundlagdes den inter-
nationale domstol i Haag. I Frankrig blev Dreyfus-
sagen genoptaget, Boerkrigen brød ud, i Norge
ulmede modstanden mod unionen med Sverige, og
Tyskland og USA delte Samoa-øerne imellem sig.

Christian 9. var konge af Danmark, og landet blev
ledet af konsejlspræsident H. Hjørring, der også
fungerede som finansminister, justitsminister og
minister for Island. Victoria sad på Englands trone på
62. år, William McKinley var præsident i USA, og
Wilhelm den 2. var kejser af Tyskland og konge af
Preussen.

Takket være telegrafen og et stadigt mere effektivt
postvæsen nåede nyhederne hurtigere og hurtigere
frem til aviserne, men problemet var at skaffe illustra-
tioner.

Og det var her, PIB kom ind i billedet.

/ P l

Æ

“In 100 years, everything will be forgotten,” sang Carl
Søeborg in 1809, and admittedly, much has been
forgotten in the 100 years PIB has existed. Actually,
even the date and the year the company was founded
had vanished in the mists of time, until Jyllandsposten
called our attention to it. Thanks to them, we now
know it was on May 6, 1899, that the then-24-year-old
Hjalmar Carlsen registered both Presse Illustrations
Bureau [Press Illustrative Bureau] and Carlsen
Clichéfabrik [Carlsen Printing Plate Manufactory] as
official companies.

1899 was another time and a very different place. At
the encouragement of Czar Nicholas II, the
International Court was founded at The Haag. In
France, the Dreyfus case was reopened, the Boer War
broke out in South Africa, resentment smouldered in
Norway against union with Sweden, and Germany and
the United States divided the Samoan Islands between
themselves.

Christian IX was King of Denmark and the country
was governed by Consul President H. Hjørring, who
also filled the posts of Finance Minister, Justice
Minister, and Minister for Iceland. Queen Victoria had
been sitting on the English throne for 62 years,

William McKinley was President of the United States,
and Wilhem II was Kaiser of Germany and King of
Prussia.

Thanks to the telegraph and an ever-increasingly
efficient Post Office, news stories reached the
newspapers faster and faster, but they still had trouble
getting illustrations.

And it was here that PIB came into the picture.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

BUREAU VED ET TILFÆLDE

PIB blev grundlagt af Hjalmar Carlsen, som voksede
op i en dansk avis-slægt med rødder tilbage til
1840’erne. Bedstefaderen, Emil Carlsen, begyndte
som bogtrykkersvend og endte som redaktør af
Aalborg Stiftstidende. Faderen, Vilhelm Carlsen,
grundlagde Vendsyssel Tidende og var redaktør for
avisen, da Hjalmar Carlsen blev født i Hjørring i 1875.

Efter skolen arbejdede Hjalmar Carlsen en tid som
smed og mejerist, men blev i 1894 af sin far sendt til
København for at gennemgå et kursus i zinkografi på
en klichéanstalt, der blandt andet leverede Alfred
Schnridts tegninger til avisen Dannebrog.

Vilhelm Carlsen Hjalmar Carlsen Emil Carlsen

han vendte tilbage til Hjørring oprettede han et lille
ætseri og leverede illustrationer til Vendsyssel
Tidende. I et års tid arbejdede Hjalmar Carlsen som

A COINCIDENTAL BUREAU

PIB was founded by Hjalmar Carlsen, who grew up in
a Danish newspaper family with roots stretching back
to the 1840s. His grandfather, Emil Carlsen, had
started out as a journeyman book printer and ended
up as editor of the newspaper Aalborg Stiftstidende.
His father, Vilhelm Carlsen, founded Vendsyssel
Tidende and was editor of that newspaper when
Hjalmar was born in Hjørring in 1875.

After school, Hjalmar Carlsen worked for a while as a
blacksmith and as a dairyman, but was sent by his
father to Copenhagen in 1894 to take a course in
zincography at a printing-plate manufacturing plant
that, among other things, supplied Alfred Schmidt’s
drawings to the newspaper Dannebrog.

When he returned to Hjørring, he opened up a little
engraving shop, from which he delivered illustrations
to Vendsyssel Tidende. In the course of a year, Hjalmar
Carlsen worked as a traveling journeyman at different
platemaking factories in Germany, the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, Switzerland, and France. This gave
him a thorough understanding of his craft’s
possibilities, and a desire to experiment to expand
them.

At that time, printed photographs were regular
features in the illustrated weekly magazines, but still
unknown in a daily newspaper context. That’s why it
caused quite a sensation in 1897 when Vendsyssel
Tidende, thanks to the editor’s enterprising son,
published the first newspaper photo in Denmark,
quite possibly the first in all of Europe.

One story has it that the much-discussed
photograph was “borrowed” from an illustrated
English magazine. It was a photo of a breeding buli,
and when it became clear that it was technologically
possible to print it in the newspaper, a journalist was
sent out to find a buli who resembled the original and

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

rejsende svend på forskellige klichefabrikker i
Tyskland, det Østrig-Ungarske kejserdømme, Schweiz
og Frankrig, Det gav ham en grundig indsigt i fagets
muligheder og fik ham til at eksperimentere.

Fotos var almindeligt brugt i de illustrerede
ugeblade, men ukendte i dagbladssammenhæng. Det
var derfor noget af en sensation, da Vendsyssel
Tidende takket være redaktørens foretagsomme søn i
1897 kunne bringe det første pressefoto i en avis i
Danmark, muligvis det første i Europa.

En historie fortæller, at det omtalte foto var “lånt”
fra et engelsk illustreret blad. Det drejede sig om et
foto af en avlstyr, og da det stod klart, at det teknisk
var muligt at trykke det i avisen, blev en journalist
sendt ud for at finde en lignende tyr og derpå skrive
en historie om den.

Gennem stadige eksperimenter fandt Hjalmar
Carlsen en metode til at fremstille tynde klicheer i
massefabrikation. Små provinsaviser havde sjældent
haft råd eller mandskab til at få lavet illustrationer,
men nu kunne man købe illustrationer fra centralt
hold og i abonnement. Efterhånden blev det muligt
for alle at bringe daglige billedreportager.

Udstyret med store ambitioner og nogen økonomisk
hjælp fra Vendsyssel Tidende grundlagde Hjalmar
Carlsen så i 1899 Presse-Illustrations-Bureau, i daglig
tale PIB. I starten havde der været tale om et rent
familiefirma, hvor Hjalmar med - af faderen beordret
og ofte modvillig hjælp af - sine søstre, stod for hele
produktionen. Men i 1898 var der blevet ansat en
udlært tysk ætser og en omrejsende sælger, W.
Peyrath, som snart blev et kendt ansigt på de skandi-
naviske og tyske avisredaktioner.

FARVEL TIL HJØRRING

En af de store begivenheder i Danmark i 1900 var
Landmandsforsamlingen i Odense. Da der ikke

to write a story about it.

Through stubborn experimentation, Hjalmar Carlsen
discovered a rnethod to massproduce thin printing
plates. This enabled small provincial newspapers, who
could seldom afford the cost and the manpower
needed to make their own illustration plates, to buy
them from a central source on a subscription basis. It
gradually became possible for all newspapers to
publish daily pictorial stories.

Equipped with big ambitions and some financial
support from Vendsyssel Tidende, Hjalmar Carlsen was
able in 1899 to officially found Presse Illustrations
Bureau, commonly called PIB. In the beginning, PIB
was a pure family firm, where Hjalmar and his sisters
— on orders from his father and sometimes none too
happily — were responsible for the entire production.
But in 1898, the company had hired a skilied engraver
and a traveling salesman, W. Peyrath, who soon
became a well known face at Scandinavian and
German newspaper offices.

GOODBYE TO HJØRRING

One of the major events in Denmark in 1899 was the
Farmers’ Convention in Odense. Because there wasn’t
a platemaking plant in Odense, and because there was
expected to be a large need for printed pieces in
connection with the convention, the litde company
moved to Vestergade in Odense. At this time, and for
many years after, PIB was both an ordinary printing-
plate manufactory and a press bureau — both parts of
the business being equally important.

The staff now consisted of an engraver, a
photographer, two apprentices, and the salesman,
Peyrath, and all lived with the now-newly married
Hjalmar Carlsen, including Peyrath’s wife and
children.

When the Farmers’ Convention was over, so was

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

fandtes en klichefabrik i byen og man kunne være
sikker på et stort behov for tryksager, flyttede det lille
firma til Vestergade i Odense. På dette tidspunkt og i
mange år fremover var PIB i lige så høj grad en almin-
delig klichefabrik som et bureau.

Personalet bestod nu af en ætser, en fotograf, to
unge lærlinge og sælgeren Peyrath, der alle boede hos
den nu nygifte Hjalmar Carlsen, inklusive Peyraths
kone og børn.

Da Landmandsforsamlingen var forbi, var det også
slut med arbejdet, og man så sig om efter nye mulig-
heder. Løsningen var at sælge føljetoner og i PIBs
blad “Redaktionssekretæren”, der blev sendt til alle
aviser, tilbød man nu fortsatte romaner.

Ideen var god, men den tekniske kvalitet lod meget
tilbage at ønske, for der var ikke råd til ordentligt
stereotypi-metal. I stedet købte man gammelt bly og
tin fra vinkapsler og te-kasser af Odenses
jernhandlere og smeltede det sammen.

Resultatet var ikke altid lige heldigt, og PIB fik
pludselig skarp konkurrence af en sønderjysk

PIB’s work in connection with it, so the company
started looking around for new opportunities. The
solution they settled on was to begin selling serials.
Redaktionssekretæren [Managing Editor] — PIB’s own
magazine that was sent out to all the newspapers —
now offered the various editors novels in continued
form.

The idea was good, but the technical quality of the
printing plates left much to be desired because there
was not enough money in the budget to buy good-
quality stereotype metal. Instead, PIB bought lead and
tin winebottle caps and tea boxes from Odense’s
scrapmetal dealers, and smelted them together.

The result was not always fortunate, and PIB was
suddenly faced with strong competition from a South
Jutland editor, Heinrich Matzen, who used a good
stereotype supplier.

That PIB nevertheless came out on top was due to
the facts that newspapers who went with PIB got
illustrations with their serials, and that PIB could offer
better novels — mainly from foreign sources. There

Da Hjalmar Carlsen flyttede virksom-
heden til Odense i 1900, sendte han
denne reklame til sine kunder.

When Hjalmar Carlsen moved the
company to Odense in 1900 he mailed
this advertisement to his customers.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

redaktør, Heinrich Matzen, der brugte en god stereo-
typianstalt.

At PIB alligevel klarede sig bedst, skyldtes at
aviserne hos PIB fik illustrationer med føljetonerne og
at man kunne tilbyde bedre romaner... hovedsageligt
udenlandske. Det sidste var der gode økonomiske
grunde til: Danmark havde på det tidspunkt endnu
ikke tiltrådt Berner-konventionen om international
beskyttelse af ophavsretten. De udenlandske
forfattere fik ikke en øre og PIB kunne nøjes med at
betale et honorar til oversætteren... og illustrationerne
tegnede Hjalmar Carlsen selv.

I erkendelse af, at Odense nok ikke var stedet for et
firma med større ambitioner, flyttede Hjalmar Carlsen
firmaet til hovedstaden. København var med sine godt
360.000 indbyggere en storby i 1902, og et samlings-
punkt for det nye århundredes tekniske landvindinger.
Man afholdt samme år Danmarks første automobilud-
stilling her og det var blevet nødvendigt at indføre
fartgrænser for disse nye spruttende og hostende
helvedsmaskiner. Man måtte højst køre 111/2 km i
timen, dog kun 7 1/2 km i timen i tæt trafik.

PIB købte en lille nedslidt klichéanstalt for en slik af
kemigrafen V.A. Johansen, der senere skulle blive
leder af Gyldendals Reproduktionsanstalt. Udstyret
var ikke meget værd, men lokalerne i Holmens Kanal
8 var gode og huslejen rimelig: 600 kr. om året.

Nu begyndte firmaet for alvor at gøre sig gældende i
den danske provinspresse med salg af julebilleder,
noveller, føljetoner og krigskort. Også i Sverige
begyndte man at se materiale fra PIB, men Vendsyssel
Tidende var dog stadig den største kunde. Så sent
som i 1986 hørte avisen til blandt PIBs 10 største
kunder.

Den øgede omsætning fik firmaet til at vokse. I løbet
af et år måtte man leje endnu en etage i ejendommen
for at udvide klichefabrikken. Uheldigvis dryppede
det lovligt meget med syre gennem gulvet til lejlig-

were solid economic reasons for the latter: Denmark
had not yet signed the Bern International Copyright
Convention designed to protect copyrights. That
meant that foreign authors didn’t get a penny in
royalties and that PIB could make do with paying only
a fee to their Danish translators. The illustrations were
drawn by Hjalmar Carlsen himself.

Admitting that Odense was probably not the right
location for a company wth big ambitions, Hjalmar
Carlsen moved PIB to the Danish Capital.

Copenhagen, with a population of better than 360,000,
was a big city in 1902, and a gathering place for all of
the new century’s technological innovations.
Denmark’s first automobile exhibition was held there
that same year, and it had become necessary to set
speedlimits for the new coughing and belching
machines from Hell. Motorists were allowed to drive a
maximum of only 111/2 km per hour, a speed limit
that was reduced to 7 1/2 km per hour in heavy traffic.

PIB bought a litde, run-down platemaking factory for
a song from VA. Johansen, a photo-engraver who later
became manager of Gyldendals Reproduction House.
The machinery wasn’t worth much, but the location at
Holmens Kanal 8 was good and the rent reasonable:
600 crowns a year.

It was now that the company began to seriously
make an impact on the provincial Danish press
through the sale of Christmas pictures, short stories,
serials, and war maps. PIB’s material began to be seen
in Sweden, too, although Vendsyssel Tidende was still
the company’s biggest client. As late as 1986, that
newspaper was still on the list of PIB’s 10 biggest
clients.

The increased turnover caused the company to grow.
In the course of a year it became necessary to rent
another floor in the building in order to enlarge the
platemaking plant. Unfortunately, a bit too much acid
leaked through the floor to the apartments below,

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

ILLUSTREREDE NOVELLER

Hr. Redaktor!

Kender De vor for nemt illustrerede Maanedsnovelle. Den udsendes en Gang om

Maaneden. er som Regel forfattet af en af Nordens ansete Forfattere og illustreret med en tre- eller fire-
spaltet Illustration, udfort af fremragende Kunstner.

Blandt de Noveller, som vi vil bringe i den nærmeste Tid, kan vi nævne:

Selma LagcrIAI.

Saa følger en Midsommer * Novelle af
Svensson Graner og derefter en fortsat Række
af udsøgte Noveller med Illustrationer.

Novelle til Pinsen af Jeppe Aakjatr. Nuvelle af Johan Bojer.

Jeppe Aakja-r Johan Bojer.

Tegnes Abonnement nu til April Kvartal leveres Martsnovellen: „En Vaar-
historie" af Selma Lagerlof vederlagsfrit

Se medfølgende Provenovelle og Illustra-
tions- Provetryk.

De illustrerede Noveller leveres i Abonnement med Eneret
for Abonnentens By, til

Pris n. Kroner 18,00 pr. Maaned + Porto.

Der leveres maanedlig en Novelle (trykt Manuskript) med
tilhorende Cliché.

Af Hensyn til Sættearbejdet bemærker vi, at der altid vil være
mindst 8 Dage mellem den Dag, De modtager Manuskriptet, og
Datoen hvor Offentliggørelse maa finde Sted. I Fortjeiiing«™« levere« trykt paa Norsk.

Bo ta Ung I norak« Kronor.

BESTILLINGSKORT

Telefon: Central 8085

Pressens-lllustrations-Bureau

Kobmagergade 9 Kobenhavn K.

Telegram- Adresse; Cliché

PIB solgte noveller med illustrationer i abonnement i mange år. Her en reklame til norske aviser.

For manyyears papers could subscribe to illustrated short stories from PIB. Here an advertisement for Norwegian papers.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

heden nedenunder, hvilket forståeligt nok gav
anledning til protester fra beboerne.

Dette og nødvendigheden af at bruge tungere
maskiner betød, at PIB i 1904 måtte flytte igen. Denne
gang var det til helt nye lokaler øverst oppe i de
Forenede Jernstøberiers nybyggede ejendom Ferrum,
hvor Politiken og Ekstrabladet nu holder til.

Fljalmar Carlsen benyttede her navnet “Dansk
Clichefabrik” til den del af firmaet. I øvrigt skiftede
PIB på omkring samme tidspunkt navn. I flere
sammenhænge kaldte firmaet sig selv for “Pressens-
Illustrations-Bureau”, men det blev nu fastslået, at det
hed “Presse-Illustrations-Bureau”. Navneskiftet
skyldtes sandsynligvis, at “presse” hedder det samme
på dansk og tysk, og man var særdeles interesseret i
at få kontakt med det tyske marked.

which led, understandably, to complaints and protests
from the residents.

This problem and the need to use heavier machinery
meant that PIB had to move again in 1904. This time it
was to brand-new quarters in De Forende
Jernstøberiers [The United Ironfounderies’] newly
constructed budding, Ferrum, which serves today as
the offices of Politiken and Ekstra Bladet.

Hjalmar Carlsen used then the name “Dansk
Clichéfabrik” [Danish Printing-Plate Manufactory] for
that side of the business. In addition, PIB changed
names at about the same time. In several connections
the company had called itself “Pressens Illustrations
Bureau,” but it was now that the name was fixed as
“Presse Illustration Bureau." The name change was
most likely due to the faet that “presse” is the same
word in both Danish and German, and the company
was very interested in establishing contact with the
German market.

Fra en 16 siders reklame fra
cirka 1905.

From a 16 page advertisement
from approx. 1905.

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

EI\r‘JULEGAVE”

Et års tid før flytningen til Ferrum-bygningen havde
PIB købt et patent på en kliche af celluloid. En
zinkkliche blev presset i hård celluloid, og med denne
form som matrice kunne man masseproducere
klicheer i blød celluloid.

Celluloid-klicheerne var sjældent helt ensartede, og
der blev konstant eksperimenteret for at forbedre
metoden. Løsningen kom en juleaftensdag. Hjalmar
Carlsen og en montør arbejdede over efter at alle de
andre var gået. I lang tid havde man forsøgt at
fremstille en antimonblandet blymatrice, men der
kom hele tiden luftblærer i matricen. Så opdagede
montøren, at man kunne slippe luften ud i små svup.
Nu lykkedes det. Sammen fremstillede de en række
fejlfri matricer og blev klar over, at problemet var løst.

Hjalmar Carlsen fortæller i sin levnedsbeskrivelse, at
han kunne være faldet montøren om halsen, men
finder det dog ikke nødvendigt at nævne mandens
navn. Det står dog fast, at montøren fik en bonus, og
PIB kunne nu sælge celluloidpatentet rundt om i
verden. Hjalmar Carlsen modtog senere Den Hielm-
stierne-Rosencronske udmærkelse for opfindelsen.

Det standsede ikke eksperimenterne. Celluloid-
klicheerne skulle klæbes på tyndt metalblik, og det var
nærliggende at prøve at lave klicheerne direkte i det
tynde blik. Løsningen var at ætse klicheen direkte i
zinkblik, og at det kunne ske via en gummitrykpresse.

Celluloid-klicheerne var velegnede til tegninger,
men ikke til fotos. Det var zinkklicheerne derimod.
PIB modtog fra forskellige kilder fotos af aktuelle
begivenheder, hvoraf man udvalgte 6-8 af de bedste
emner. De blev så overført til zinkklicheer, der var så
tynde, at de kunne sendes som tryksager.

Den billige forsendelsemetode kom i fare, da en
årvågen funktionær på Købmagergades Posthus
opdagede, at forsendelserne var for uensartede til at

A C H RI STMAS^‘ PRESENT^

A year before the company moved to the Ferrum
budding, PIB bought a patent for a printing plate
made out of celluloid. A zinc plate was pressed against
hard celluloid, and using the resultant hard celluloid
plate as a master mold, it was possible to
massproduce printing plates on soft celluloid.

The celluloid plates were seldom uniform, and
constant experimentation was carried out to try to
improve the process. The solution was found on a
Christmas Eve day. Hjalmar Carlsen and a plate fitter
were working overtime after all the other employees
had gone home. They had been trying over a long
period of time to make an antimony-alloyed-with-lead
master plate, but air bubbles kept forming in the
master. But that day, the fitter discovered that they
could just let the air out of the bubbles in small pops.
Suddenly, the process was a success. They made a
series of flawless masters and were both aware that
the problem was at last solved.

Hjalmar Carlsen wrote in his memoirs that he could
have hugged the fitter at that moment, although he
didn't think it was necessary to actually mention the
man’s name. He did say that the fitter got a bonus,
and that PIB could as a result license the celluloid-
plate patent around the world. Later, Carlsen was
awarded the Hielmstierne-Rosencronkse honor for the
invention.

That success didn’t stop the experimentation. The
celluloid plates still needed to be attached to thin
metal sheets, and it seemed obvious that the next step
was to try to engrave plates directly onto the
sheetmetal. The solution was to etch the image
directly onto thin zinc sheets, and that was achieved
by using a press intended for rubber.

The celluloid plates were well-suited to drawings,
but not to photographs. The zinc plates, on the other

12

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

man kunne sende de duplikerede manuskripter som
tryksager.

Problemet blev løst ved at præge fine raster i papir-
tynde metalfolier. Manuskripterne blev så skrevet
direkte med skrivemaskiner på folierne, og de kunne
så trykkes. Kønt var det ikke, men resultatet kunne
læses og var indiskutabelt en tryksag, så man kunne
undgå en portoforhøjelse.

Hjalmar Carlsen blev så optaget af at arbejde med
metal, at han oprettede en hel metalskiltefabrik med
arbejdere fra Tyskland. Den gav aldrig andet end
underskud og blev til sidst solgt til den tyske
værkfører, Baade, der fik en velfungerende
virksomhed ud af den.

Skiltefabrikationen fik alligevel stor betydning for
PIB i skikkelse af skiltesælgeren Georg Kaaring.

Han så straks mulighederne i de tynde zinkklicheer
med aktuelle motiver, og tilbød at blive omrejsende
sælger i Skandinavien. Salget gik strålende, og Kaaring
blev med tiden kompagnon i firmaet.

hånd, were. PIB received photographs of current
events from various sources, out of which were
chosen 6 to 8 of the best subjects. These were then
transferred to the zinc plates, which were so thin that
they could be mailed as printed matter.

This cheap shipping method was endangered when
an alert employee at the Købmagergade Post Office
discovered that the plates were too non-uniform to
allow PIB to send the duplicated manuscript plates at
printed matter rates.

This problem was solved by impressing a fine screen
onto paper-thin sheets of metal foil. Typewriters were
then used to type the manuscripts directly onto these
foil sheets, which were possible to print from. They
weren’t pretty, but the result could be read and it was
indisputably printed matter, which enabled the
company to avoid increased postage rates.

Hjalmar Carlsen became so obsessed with working
with metal that he established an entire metal- sign
factory, employing workers from Germany. This
factory always operated at a loss, and was finally sold
off to the German foreman, Baade, who made a
profitable business out of it.

Nevertheless, the sign factory ended up having a
large impact on PIB, in the person of its salesman,
Georg Kaaring.

He rapidly saw the profit possibilities in the thin zinc
plates featuring topical motifs, and offered to become
PIB’s Scandinavian traveling salesman for them. Sales
were brisk, and Kaaring eventually became a partner
in the company.

13

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

UD I DEN VIDE VERDEN

PIB udviklede sig i stadig stigende grad som nyheds-
bureau indenfor illustrationer og fotos. Da Christian
den 9. døde i januar 1906, lå Hjalmar Carlsen på den
epidemiske afdeling med difteritis. På trods af alle
sikkerhedsbestemmelser sneg han sig ud for
personligt at overvåge, at alle danske provinsaviser fik
klicheer af den populære konge. Heldigvis viste
Hjalmar Carlsen sig ikke at være smittefarlig, og ingen
andre på klicheanstalten blev syge.

Kongehuset var dengang som nu godt stof. Da den
danske prins Carl samme år blev kronet til konge af
Norge som Håkon den 7., steg antallet af abonnenter
betydeligt i både Sverige og Norge. I 1911 købte
Politiken Ferrum-ejendommen og betalte PIB 5.000
kr. for at flytte fra tagetagen. PIB benyttede anled-
ningen til en større oprydning af firmaets forskellige
aktiviteter. Metalskiltefabrikken og den del af kliche-
fabrikken, der beskæftigede sig med reklamer, blev
solgt fra. Pressebureauet og resten af klichefabrikken,
der senere blev kendt som Carlsens Cliché & Offset
(CC&O), lejede sig ind i Købmagergade nr. 9, som var
PIBs adresse frem til 1982.

Nu besluttede Hjalmar Carlsen sig for et større

OUT IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD

PIB developed and grew steadily as a newsbureau
specializing in illustrations and photos. When
Christian IX died in January 1906, Hjalmar Carlsen
was confined to the hospital’s epidemic ward with
diphtheria. Despite all the hospital’s security rules, he
snuck out to personally supervise that all of the
Danish provincial newspapers got printing plates
picturing the popular king. Luckily it turned out that
Carlsen wasn’t infectious, and no one else at the
platemaking plant got sick.

Then as now, the royal family was a good story.

When, in the same year, the Danish Prince Carl was
crowned as King Håkon VII of Norway, the number of
subscribers rose considerably in both Sweden and
Norway. In 1911, Politiken bought the Ferrum budding
and paid PIB 5,000 crowns to move out of the top floor.
PIB used the occasion to undertake a thorough clean-
up of the company’s various businesses. The metal-
sign factory and that part of the platemaking plant that
concerned itself with advertising were sold then. The
press bureau and the rest of the platemaking plant,
which later became known as Carlsens Cliché & Offset
(CC&O), rented space in Købmagergade 9, which was

Et tidligt eksempel på
billedmanipulation.

An early example of
photo -manipulation.

14

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

I 1911 flyttede PIB til Købmagergade nr. 9. PIB købte hele bygningen i
1972 og havde kontorer her indtil 1982.

PIB moved to Købmagergade no. 9 in 1911. PIB bought the entire
building in 1972 and stayed until 1982.

fremstød i udlandet. Den tyske prinsesse Cecilie
fyldte 25 år, og han var overbevist om at aviser overalt
i de tysksprogede områder gerne ville bringe et foto i
den anledning.

PIB fremstillede nogle tusinde klicheer med et foto
af den unge prinsesse, men i stedet for at sende dem
fra Danmark (hvilket ville blive meget dyrt) pakkede
ffjalmar Carlsen dem ned og tog damperen til
Tyskland. I Stettin lejede han sig ind på et hotel og
hyrede nogle soldater fra en nærliggende kaserne til
at slå klicheerne på træklodser samt pakke og sende
dem. Da det rygtedes at man kunne tjene en mark for
en 4-5 timers arbejde blev der nærmest trængsel af
soldater, der ville hjælpe til.

Samtlige aviser i Tyskland og det Østrig-Ungarske
Kejserrige modtog en kliche som reklame, og PIB
kunne snart oprette kontor og klichefabrik i
Wilhelmstrasse i Berlin. Herfra sendte man så til den
hastigt voksende kundekreds i Europa. Redaktør

PIB's address up to 1982.

It was at this time that Hjalmar Carlsen decided on a
big advance into foreign markets. The German
Princess Cecilie turned 25 years old, and Carlsen was
convinced that newspapers throughout the German-
speaking regions would happily publish a photograph
of her to mark the event.

PIB manufactured several thousand plates with a
photo of the young princess, but instead of mailing
them individually from Denmark (which would have
been very expensive), Carlsen decide to crate them up
and personally take them to Germany aboard a
steamship. He rented a hotel room in Stettin and
hired some soldiers from a nearby army camp to nail
the plates to wooden blocks, and then pack them up
and mail them. When rumors rapidly spread that a
man could earn a mark for 4-5 hours work, there was
almost a crush of soldiers wanting to help.

All of the newspapers in Germany and the Austro-
Hungarian Empire received a printing plate as a
promotion for PIB, and the company could soon open
a branch office and platemaking plant on the
Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. It was from here that the
company shipped to its rapidly growing client list
throughout Europe. Editor Poulsen managed the
business in Copenhagen, and the German workers
who were hired to man the Berlin branch were paid
wages of up to 30 marks a week.

The tense political situation meant that newspapers
in France were not kindly disposed to receiving
material sent from Berlin. When PIB noticed in 1912
that the company had already signed up 300 German
subscribers of pictorial material, who together netted
it a profit of 30,000 marks, expansion of the French
market seemed even more attractive. The answer was,
naturally, to set-up a branch in Paris, so in 1913 PIB
opened an office on the Quai Voltaire under the name
Regionaux Illustrées. Business was also good here.

15

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

lllustrez votre Journal : vous ferez bien!

Mais... utilisez les Clichés Carlsen

vous ferez mieux ! !

Les Clichés d'actualité CARLSEN, sp^iniemcni destinés au « Journaux de Province,

incnl les mcillcurs résullats sur Rotati VeS, sur PpeSSeS plateS, sur les PapierS les plus PUCjUeUX

600 journaux europtens uliliscnl attueHcmcnt nos Cllchts : Qu'cn discnt-ils ???

Pendant I« coure do la Periode
elcclorale. et å Ur* tfe Propaganda,

dt» Cliché* Vi;»rt»cn/«nf
le* Carulldal * au\ Elctilnnt
»crnnl adresses ORATUITEMENT
h tint« imm nau\raut Abcmné*

Exceptionnellement

Abonnement d'un Mois ]

Nos Clichés sont expédiés :

i »• AwssJtét IH »c '•(•fNirsraa

1 r A tir* f*it d* fisat toute NnnirrriiM "W.e m »»■ »

, i Ar(iNn|u(iH* il un lesi* esplleatifi

a titre d'essai

U tmmén dm 1 * «»<l X«) W).<ip^/|i»i» ■ p— miwrétm wu > n mmrét |

1 |* Ea inunl loufoui » t SifSi ét la nusa«* polltlqu* .1* aas mhmmr* H ét

1 BH |N«p leer regian orrtains dr

[

Fra PIBs første forsøg på at få fodfæste på det franske marked.

From PIB’sfirst attempt to get afoothold at the French market.

16

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Poulsen passede forretningen i København, og man
ansatte tyske medarbejdere i Berlin til lønninger på
helt op til 30 mark om ugen.

Den spændte politiske situation gjorde, at aviser i
Frankrig ikke var venligt stemt overfor materiale
adresseret fra Berlin. Da man allerede i 1912 kunne
notere, at man havde fået 300 tyske abonnenter på
billedmateriale og kunne notere et overskud på
30.000 mark virkede det franske marked endnu mere
dragende. Løsningen var naturligvis at åbne et kontor
i Paris, og i 1913 oprettede PIB en afdeling i Quai
Voltaire under navnet Regionaux Illustrées. Også her
gik det fint. Mange franske dagblade blev kunder, og
også i Spanien og Nordafrika begyndte kuverterne
med klicheer at dukke op. Betalingen kunne dog være
et problem. En kunde i Biskra betalte sit klicheabon-
nement med dadler.

Næste mål var Rusland , og snart havde PIB kontor i
Sankt Petersborg.

KRIGEN

Alt tegnede lyst for PIB, men i 1914 sluttede eventyret
brat med udbruddet af 1. Verdenskrig. De fleste
danske medarbejdere hastede hjem for ikke at blive
fanget af krigen. PIBs ætser i Berlin, Rudolf Jensen,
var på vej til Paris, da krigen blev erklæret. Han blev
smidt af toget i Belgien og måtte gå med sin kuffert i
hånden til Paris, hvorfra han via London og
København vendte tilbage til Berlin.

Danmark undgik at blive involveret i stridighederne,
og afdelingerne i Berlin, Paris og Sankt Petersborg
forblev åbne under hele krigen.

Enkelte reklamertryksager i A2-format på forskellige
sprog med billeder fra krigen og af statsledere findes
stadig i PIBs arkiver og vidner om, at firmaet
bevarede kontakten til aviser over hele Europa.

Men længere udenlandsrejser sydpå var udelukket.

Many French daily newspapers became clients, and
envelopes with printing plates also began to show up
in Spain and North Africa. Payment could sometimes
be a problem, though. One customer in Biskra paid
for his printing-plate subscription with dates.

The company’s next goal was Russia, and PIB soon
had an office in Saint Petersburg.

WAR

The future looked bright for PIB, but the adventure
came to an abrupt halt in 1914 with the eruption of
World War I. Most of the company’s Danish employees
hurried home so they wouldn’t be trapped by the war.
PIB's engraver in Berlin, Rudolf Jensen, was on a train
on the way to Paris when war was declared. He was
thrown off the train in Belgium and had to walk with
his suitcase in hånd to Paris, from where he returned
to Berlin via London and Copenhagen.

Denmark avoided involvement in the hostilities, and
the company’s branches in Berlin, Paris, and Saint
Petersburg remained open throughout the entire war.

A few advertising pieces, printed in A2 size and in
various languages, with photos from the war or of
heads of State, can still be found in PIB’s archives and
serve as witnesses that the company retained its
contacts with newspapers all over Europe.

Still, longer foreign journeys south of the Danish
border were out of the question. On the other hånd,
Sweden was also a neutral nation, so PIB opened a
Swedish branch in 1916, under the name Illustration
Aktuel.

CO M I C STRIP SYNDICATION FOR
BEGINNERS

A couple of years before PIB was founded, a new
phenomenon called comic strips showed up in the

17

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Til gengæld var Sverige som Danmark neutralt, så PIB
startede i 1916 en afdeling i Stockholm under navnet
Illustration Aktuel.

SERIESYNDIKERING FOR BEGYNDERE

I USA var der et par år før PIB blev dannet dukket et
fænomen op, man kaldte tegneserier. Fænomenet
med humoristiske billedfortællinger var ikke nyt, men
brug af dialog i den sammenhæng var en banebry-
dende nyskabelse. I Danmark havde man set de første
amerikanske serier i omtegnet form fra 1906 i de
illustrerede ugeblade og omkring 1915 besluttede PIB
at prøve, om aviserne muligvis kunne være interes-
seret i den slags materiale.

Valget faldt på den amerikanske serie Mutt & Jeff ,
der netop på dette tidspunkt var inde i en spændende
udvikling, både kunstnerisk og fra et forretnings-
mæssigt synspunkt.

Serietegnere havde indtil da solgt deres serier til
enten en enkelt avis eller til en avisgruppe, og
tegneren Bud Fisher havde siden 1907 haft en aftale
med Hearst- aviserne. Hearst betalte godt... endog

United States. Telling humorous stories through a
series of drawings was not in itself a new idea, but the
addition of dialogue in that connection was a
groundbreaking new creation. The first American
comic strips had shown up in Denmark in 1906 in the
illustrated weekly magazines (in redrawn form), and
around 1915, PIB decided to test the waters to see if
their newspapers could possibly be interested in that
type of material.

The test subject chosen was the American strip, Mutt
and Jeff, which at precisely that moment was in the
midst of an exciting development, both artistically and
commercially.

Comic strip artists had up to that time sold their
strips either to a single newspaper, or to a group of
newspapers, and cartoonist Bud Fisher had had since
1907 such an agreement with the Hearst newspapers.
Hearst paid well — even very well — but an alert
businessman named lohn N. Wheeler saw even
greater possibilities in Fisher’s strip. Wheeler
contacted Fisher in 1915 and offered him the fabulous
sum of $5,000 a week for the strip, an amount that
very few comic strip artists before or since have ever

Natmad på PIB efter fotos fra
folketingsvalget i 1918 var sendt
med første morgentog til de danske
abonnenter.

A midnight snack at PIB af ter
photos from the general election of
1918 had been delivered to the early
morning train for subscribers all
over Denmark.

18

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Bud Fishers berømte serie, Mutt & Jeff
Bud Fisher’s famous strip, Mutt & Jeff

meget godt... men en vågen forretningsmand ved
navn John N. Wheeler så endnu større muligheder i
Fishers streg. I 1915 kontaktede Wheeler Bud Fisher og
tilbød ham den formidable sum af $5.000 om ugen for
serien, et beløb som de færreste serietegnere nogen-
sinde før eller siden har oplevet. Alle rystede på
hovedet, men Wheeler havde set rigtigt. Da den unge
Sid Goldberg (nu chef for United Medias udenlandsaf-
deling) i 1950’erne blev ansat på Wheeler Syndicate,
fortalte den aldrende Wheeler, at da han som sælger
tog rundt for at sælge serien, “havde serien tjent sig
selv hjem allerede inden man nåede Pittsburg!”.

Wheeler skabte hermed begrebet “syndikering”.
Principielt var det stort set det samme som PIB
allerede benyttede. Man købte (i hvert fald efter at
Danmark havde underskrevet Berner-konventionen)
illustrationer, tekster, fotos eller serier af ophavs-
manden eller dennes agent og lejede derefter
kunderne ophavsretten. For PIB drejede det sig om to,
i virkeligheden adskilte, funktioner: Man tjente dels
ved at få en afgift for selve brugen af materialet og
derpå penge på at levere den tekniske mulighed for at
trykke materialet via oversættelse, opsætning,
klicheer (senere fotokopier og elektronisk levering).

For ophavsmanden er syndikering gennem et

experienced. Everyone shook their heads at Wheeler’s
folly, but his foresight proved to be correct. Flow
correct it was is proven by a story Wheeler told the
then-young Sid Goldberg (now head of United Media’s
foreign rights division), when Goldberg was hired at
Wheeler’s syndicate in the 1950s. The ageing Wheeler
recalled that when he travelled around to seil the
strip, “everything west of Pittsburgh was gravy!”

Wheeler had thus created the concept of
“syndication.” The principle behind it is largely the
same one already used by PIB. The company bought
(at least after Denmark had signed the Bern Copyright
Convention) illustrations, texts, photographs, or
serials from the copyright owner or his agent, and
then licensed the reproduction rights to its clients. For
PIB, the business turned on two, in reality, separate
functions: the company received license fees for the
very use of the material, and on top of that earned
money for providing the technical means of printing
the material. This technical means included
translation, typesetting, and printing plates (later
replaced with photocopies and digital files).

For the copyright holder, syndication is the only
reasonable way to get his material widely distributed
and secure payment for it. For the client, it’s the only

19

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

bureau den eneste fornuftige måde at få materialet
udbredt og at sikre sig betaling, for kunderne er det
den eneste metode til at få materiale, der ellers ville
være alt for dyrt... hvis man overhovedet kendte til
dets eksistens.

Et evigt springende punkt er naturligvis den økono-
miske side af sagen, og her har kunder, ophavsmænd
og bureauer ikke nødvendigvis sammenfaldende
interesser.

I mange år var det normalt at et bureau købte alle
rettigheder til materialet af ophavsmanden for et
engangsbeløb. Her har lovgivningen senere sat nogle
grænser, men et tilbagevendende problem er
forskellen på f.eks. dansk og amerikansk lov, som kan
gøre kontrakter over landegrænser til en ret kompli-
ceret affære.

Normal praksis har de sidste mange år været, at
ophavsmænd til syndikeret materiale får en procent-
andel af alle indtægter, en såkaldt royalty, som man
også kender fra andre brancher, der omfattes af
ophavsloven.

Ophavsmanden leverer materialet, og bureauet står
så for salg, masseproduktion, levering til kunderne og
fakturering. Ved internationalt salg laves der alminde-
ligvis underaftaler mellem bureauer i de respektive
områder.

Det er kort sagt en udvidelse af almindelig agentur-
virksomhed, men det var ret nyt i 1915, og helt nyt, at
tænke på tegneserier i den forbindelse.

Men da systemet lå tæt op ad PIBs illustrations- og
fotoservice, var det oplagt at forsøge sig med Mutt &
Jeff, der havde startet det hele. ..ikke mindst af økono-
miske årsager (Danmark havde STADIG ikke under-
skrevet Berner-konventionen).

Mutt & Jeff fik den danske titel Store Klaus og Lille
Klaus og serien blev tilbudt kunder i Skandinavien.

Der blev ikke solgt en eneste.

Eftersom man allerede havde fremstillet en del

way to get the material, which otherwise would be too
expensive — if he even knew of its existence.

An eternal bone of contention is naturally the
financial side of the matter, and it’s here that clients,
copyright holders, and syndicating bureaus don’t
necessarily share the same concerns.

For many years, it was normal practice for a bureau
to buy from the copyright holder all rights to the
material for a one-time lump sum. Later legislation
has now set some limits to this practice, but a
recurring problem is the differences between, for
example, Danish and American copyright laws, which
can make international contracts extremely
complicated affairs.

The normal practice over the last many years has
been for the copyright holder of syndicated material
to get a percentage of all syndication income, a so-
called royalty, which is a term also known from other
media branches that are covered by the copyright
laws.

The copyright holder delivers the material to the
bureau responsible for sales, massproduction,
distribution to the clients, and invoicing of the license
fees. It’s common with international sales that sub-
contracts are drawn up between bureaus in the
respective territories.

Syndication is, in short, an expansion of the normal
agency business, but in 1915, it was a fairly new
concept, and a completely new idea in connection
with comic strips.

But because the system was closely related to PIB’s
illustration and photo service, it was natural for the
company to attempt comic strip syndication with
Mutt & Jeff, the strip which had started it all — and
not least because of financial considerations (at that
time, Denmark still hadrit signed the Bern
Convention) .

Mutt & Jeff got the Danish title Store Klaus og Little

20

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

materiale, blev den sendt ud gratis til de kunder, der
abonnerede på PIBs børnestof.

LYKKENS^GALOCHER

Krigens afslutning efterlod et Europa i ruiner.
Danmark var sluppet billigt, men dønningerne fra
den efterfølgende internationale økonomiske krise
kunne ikke undgås.

Alle PIBs udenlandske afdelinger blev lukket ,og i
det danske hovedkontor blev der skåret ned på perso-
nalet. Alt tydede på, at PIB skulle blive blot et af
mange små lokale billedbureauer. Det trængte til en
effektiv vitaminindsprøjtning, og den kom i 1924 i
form af noget så usandsynligt som en stang lak til
reparation af galocher.

Et generelt problem for tidens fotos i aviser var, at de
var grå og kontrastløse. For at få det bedste resultat af
klicheerne skulle de indloddes direkte på trykcylin-
drene, men det var besværligt, og mange eksperimen-
terede med at finde en lettere løsning.

Det skete også på PIB og en dag hørte man om en
typograf, der resolut havde limet en kliche fast med
fiskelim efter at den var sprunget af. Elvis man kunne

Klaus, and was offered to clients across Scandinavia.
Not a single comic strip was sold.

But since a great deal of material had already been
manufactured, it was sent out free to clients who
subscribed to PIB’s children’s material.

FORTUNE’S GALOSHES

The end of the war left a Europe in ruins. Denmark
had gotten off cheaply, but the reverberations of the
economic crisis that followed could not be avoided.

All of PIB’s foreign branches were closed and there
were cut-backs in the staff at the company’s Danish
headquarters. All signs pointed towards a future in
which PIB was just one of many small, local
illustration bureaus. The company was in desperate
need of an effective vitamin shot, and it came in 1924
in the form of something as unlikely as a bar of glue
used to repair galoshes.

A general problem with that time’s newspaper
photographs was that they were grey and lacking in
contrast. To get the best results from the printing
plates, they had to be clamped directly onto the
printing press cylinders, but that was difficult and
many experimented in the hope of finding a better
solution.

Such experiments were also conducted at PIB, and

21

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Brev fra The Evansville Press i Indiana, hvor
avisen udtrykker sin tilfredshed med Ilglue og at
man ønsker at blive fast kunde. Kirsten Bang har
til kontoret i København noteret, at hun har fået
$160,75 i forskud. Fra 1928.

Letter from The Evansville Press, Indiana, in
which the paper expresses satisfaction with
Ilglue and that the paper wish to subscribe.
According to a note by Kirsten Bang on the letter,
$160,45 has been paid in advance. From 1928.

finde en lim, der kunne klæbe metal mod metal og
tørre uden at størkne helt, var problemet løst.

Man prøvede al slags lim, og den bedste viste sig at
være en lak, skomagere brugte til reparation af
galocher.

Rudolf Jensen, hvis fodtur fra Belgien til Paris var
blevet en legende i firmaet, analyserede lakken og
tilførte nye bestanddele. Limen blev patenteret under

one day the news spread about a typesetter who had
resolutely glued a plate fast to a press cylinder with
fish glue after it had sprung off. If someone could find
a glue that could stick metal to metal and that would
dry without hardening completely, the problem would
be solved.

PIB’s experimenters tried all kinds of glues, and the
hest one turned out to be a lacquer shoemakers used

22

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

navnet “Ilglue” og blev en enorm succes.

Rotationstrykkerier over hele verden blev kunder og
betalte godt for både licens og lak. Den tyske social-
demokratiske presse betalte den for tiden enorme
sum af 15.000 kr. for licensen alene, og sælgere for
PIB bankede på hos stort set alle større aviser i den
vestlige verden.

I USA rejste Kirsten Carlsen (senere Bang) og solgte
Ilglue til en lang række dagblade. I hendes kontrakt
fra 1928 kan man læse, at prisen principielt var $100
for brugsretten og $1 for en stang Ilglue, dog kun $10
for tolv. Kirsten Bang var provisionslønnet og fik
halvdelen af alle licensindtægter.

Prisen kunne dog variere. Redaktør A.R. Treanor på
Saginaw Daily News var en effektiv forhandler og fik
prisen ned på $50 for brugsretten til limen, mens ER.
Peters fra The Evansville Press, der var meget tilfreds
med limen, lod sig overtale til at betale $150.

DE FØRSTE SERIER

Når de amerikanske aviser kom til Danmark, blev de
flittigt læst for at finde inspiration, og det stod hurtigt
klart, at tegneserier var et område, der også måtte
kunne opdyrkes i Europa. Men hvordan skulle sagen
gribes an? Problemet med Mutt & Jeff havde nok
været, at serien havde været FOR udenlandsk, men en
skandinavisk serie var måske svaret. Det havde ikke
undgået nogens opmærksomhed, at den umådeligt
populære danske tegner og humorist Storm P. havde
arbejdet med mediet siden 1913 og siden 1922 havde
haft stor succes med serien Peter og Ping i B.T.

På den anden side af Sundet havde den svenske
tegner Oscar Jacobsson i 1920 skabt serien Adamson.
Serien var blevet populær, og Jacobsson havde endog
besøgt USA for at få solgt serien der. Imidlertid var
han blevet så rystet over de krav, de amerikanske
bureauer stillede i deres standardkontrakter, at han

to repair galoshes.

Rudolf Jensen, whose walking tour from Belgium to
Paris had become a company legend, analyzed the
lacquer and added a few new ingredients. The
resulting glue was patented under the name “Ilglue”
and became an enormous success.

Rotary presses around the world became customers
and paid well for both the license and the glue. The
German Social Democratic press paid the, for that
time, enormous sum of 15,000 crowns for the license
alone, and salesmen from PIB knocked on the doors
of just about all the major newspapers in the Western
world.

In the United States, Kirsten Carlsen (later Bang)
traveled around and sold Ilglue to a long list of daily
papers. You can read in her contract for 1928 that the
suggested price for the license was $100, and the price
for a bar of glue was $1.00 (discounted to $10.00 a
dozen). Kirsten Bang worked on commission and
received one-half of all the license income.

The above prices could vary, though. Editor A.B.
Treanor at the Saginaw Daily News was an effective
negotiator and got the price for the license down to
$50.00, while E.R. Peters at The Evansville Press, who
was very satisfied with the glue, was talked into
paying $150.

THE FIRST^COMIC STRIPS

Whenever the American newspapers arrived in
Denmark, they were eagerly read as a source of
inspiration, and it quickly became clear that comic
strips were a medium that should also be possible to
promote in Europe. But how could the matter be
tackled? The problem with Mutt & Jeff had probably
been that the strip was too foreign, but a
Scandinavian strip just might be the answer. No one
had failed to notice that the incredibly popular Danish

23

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Adamson

hastigt var taget hjem igen.

Serien var perfekt for PIB af flere årsager. Tegneren
var svensker, og trods seriens internationale format er
der noget umiskendeligt skandinavisk over seriens
storrygende gnavpots evige kamp mod daglige fortræ-
deligheder. Hvad der dog især måtte tiltale et bureau
med mange udenlandske kunder var, at der aldrig var
tekst i serien. Adamson var en pantomime-serie og
kom i øvrigt til at danne skole inden for denne genre.
Det betød, at PIB kunne spare oversættelserne og at
aviserne ikke behøvede at sætte tekst under striberne.

En aftale blev indgået, og Jacobsson tegnede serien

Blandt de mange, der har modtaget Svenska Serieakadamins Adamson-
statuette, er Dilbert-tegneren Scott Adams.

Among the many who have received the Svenska Serieakadamins award,
the Adamson, is Dilbert-artist, Scott Adams.

cartoonist and humorist Storm P. had worked in the
medium since 1913, and had since 1922 achieved
major success with the strip Peter and Ping in B.T.

On the other side of the sound, the Swedish
cartoonist Oscar Jacobsson had created a comic strip
named Adamson in 1920. The strip had become
popular and Jacobsson had even journeyed to
America to try to sell it there. But Jacobsson was so
shaken over the terms demanded by the American
syndicates in their standard contracts that he quickly
went home again.

The strip was perfect for PIB, for several reasons. The
cartoonist was a Swede and, despite the strip’s
international format, there was something
unmistakably Scandinavian about its chain-smoking
sourpuss and his eternal battie against the everyday
annoyances of life. But what must have especially
attracted a bureau with many international clients
was that there was never any dialogue in the strip.
Adamson was a pantomime strip and served as the
inspiration for that genre. Its lack of dialogue mean
that a newspaper didn't need to set type under the
pictures.

A deal was made and Jacobsson drew the strip until
his death in 1945, after which the Danish cartoonist
Viggo Ludvigsen took it over until 1964. The strip is

24

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

til sin død i 1945, hvorefter den danske tegner Viggo
Ludvigsen overtog den frem til 1964. Serien bringes
stadig flere steder, og Adamson har givet navn og
figur til Svenska Serieakademins hæderspris.

Det eneste problem med Adamson var, at Oscarsson
kun lavede en enkelt stribe om ugen, og flere og flere
aviser efterspurgte daglige serier.

Man måtte altså anskaffe en anden stribe. En ung
ambitiøs tegne-
filmstegner ved
navn Henning
Dahl-Mikkelsen
havde allerede
været i kontakt med
PIB som illustrator,
og var i 1936 nået til
det resultat, at
tegnefilmsbranchen
var endnu hårdere
end tilværelsen som
illustrator.

Efter en del
forhandlinger blev
man enige om at
han skulle forsøge
sig med en daglig pantomimeserie. Resultatet blev
Ferd'nand, der debuterede i engelske dagblade i 1937,
og som skulle blive en af PIBs største seriesucceser.
Arven fra Adamson var tydelig i indholdet i begyn-
delsen, men Dahl-Mikkelsens fortid som tegnefilms-
tegner viste sig i de velkomponerede og elegante
tegninger og gjorde Ferd’nand til noget unikt. Også
indholdsmæssigt ændrede serien sig, og en gennem-
læsning af de gamle striber giver et fascinerede
indtryk af hvordan forholdene ændrede sig igennem
de over 60 år hvor serien er blevet tegnet.

Dahl-Mikkelsen opgav aldrig drømmen om at blive
animator og fremstillede flere korte reklametegnefilm

still published in several places, and the name
“Adamson” and the title character’s likeness has been
borrowed by the Svenska Serierakademin [Swedish
Comics Academy] for it’s honor prize.

The only problem with Adamson was that Jacobsson
drew only one strip a week, and more and more
newspapers were looking for daily strips.

PIB just had to find a second comic strip. A young,
ambitious animator named Henning Dahl-Mikkelsen
had already had contacts with PIB as an illustrator,
and had in 1935 reached the conclusion that the
animation business was even harder than life as an
illustrator.

After some negotiation, PIB and Dahl-Mikkelsen
agreed that he should attempt to create a daily
pantomime comic strip. The result was Ferd’nand, a
strip that debuted in English daily newspapers in
1937, and went on to become one of PIB’s greatest
comic strip successes. The inspiration of Adamson
was obvious in the strip’s subject matter in the
beginning, but Dahl-Mikkelsen’s experience as an
animator showed itself in his well-composed and
elegant drawings, which made Ferd’nand into
something unique. The strip’s content has also
changed over time, and a rereading of the old strips
gives a fascinating insight into how living conditions
have evolved during the 60 years the strip has been
drawn.

Dahl-Mikkelsen never gave up his dream of
becoming an animator and made several short
advertising films starring Ferd’nand. He moved to the
USA in 1946 — you can see in the strips how he
gradually became more and more “Americanized.” His
growing family contributed to an increasing number
of ideas about Ferd'nand's little family, and the
background settings developed throughout the 1950s
into an American suburban environment. After Dahl-
Mikkelsen’s death in 1982, the strip was continued by

25

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

PRESSE-ILLUSTRATIONS-BUREAU

BOX 6 - KØBENHAVN - DANMARK

venter man paa Deres Blad

Man venter Bladet vil bringe
gode aktuelle Illustrationer

Tegn derfor

Aktuelt Clichéabonnement

hos Presse-Illus trations-Bureau

; pow£R S '

„ : russi*

Tku** h '*

'7,500.000

600 . 000 ,

mene"

Til

Presse-Illustrations-Bureau

Box 6, København

Giv os Tilbud paa Levering af
Aktuelle Clichéer til vort Blad

Fra 1905 til 1974 abonnerede 90% af
den danske provinspresse og mange
udenlandske aviser på PIBs fotoservice.
Reklame fra 1930’erne.

From 1905 to 1974 90% ofthe Danish
provinsial press subscribed to PIB’s
photo -service. Ad vertisemen t fro m
the 1930’s.

26

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

med Ferd’nand som hovedperson. I 1946 flyttede han
til USA og man kan i serien se, hvordan han blev
mere og mere “amerikaniseret”. Hans voksende
familie gav ham flere og flere ideer til Ferd'nands lille
familie og baggrunden udviklede sig igennem 50’erne
til amerikansk forstadsmiljø. Efter Dahl-Mikkelsens
død i 1982 blev serien forstat af den amerikanske
tegner Al Plastino, bl.a. kendt som superheltetegner
for D.C.. I 1989 blev Ferd’nand overtaget af den
danske tegner Henrik Rehr, da PIB ønskede at føre
serien tilbage til mere skandinaviske forhold. Det
hjalp nu ikke meget, da Rehr straks efter flyttede til
New York, hvor han tegner serien i dag.

KRIG IGEN

PIBs store salgsområder lå indenfor fotos og licenser
til Ilglue og andre patenter, men også vittigheder,
modestof, børnemateriale og tegneserierne kom
efterhånden til at gå godt og blev trykt i aviser i
Indien, Iran, Polynesien og Afrika. Under et besøg på
en avis i Udlandet noterede en dansk journalist sig
med nogen forbløffelse, at der på redaktørens
skrivebord lå en kuvert med den for en dansk
bladmands så velkendte afsenderadresse: “PIB, box 6,
Copenhagen”.

Det største marked var dog stadig Tyskland ,og her
ændrede situationen sig langsomt, men uundgåeligt.
Med nazisternes magtovertagelse fulgte også censur,
og helt i overensstemmelse med totalitær tankegang i
al almindelighed var den mest effektive censur
simpelt hen at forhindre folk i at have kontakt med
udlandet.

De tyske aviser fik besked på ikke længere at handle
med ikke-tyske bureauer, og snart fulgte de østrigske
dagblade trop.

Hjalmar Carlsen nævner i breve hjem fra en rejse i
slutningen af 1930’erne, hvordan de gamle kunder

the American cartoonist Al Plastino, known for, among
other things, drawing superhero comics for D.C.
Comics. Ferd’nand again changed hånds in 1989, this
time taken over by the Danish cartoonist Henrik Rehr
because PIB wished to move the strip’s environment
back to more Scandinavian settings. It didn’t help
much as Rehr immediately after moved to New York,
from where he draws the strip today.

WAR AGAIN

PIB’s largest sources of income came from photos and
licenses to Ilglue and other patents; but also cartoons,
fashion reportage, children’s features, and comic strips
eventually came to seil well, and were published in
newspapers from India to Iran, from Polynesia to
Africa. During a visit to Tierra del Fuego, a Danish
journalist noted to his great amazement that on a
local editor’s desk lay an envelope with a — for a
Danish newspaperman — well-known return address:
“PIB, Box 6, Copenhagen.”

The company’s largest market was still Germany, but
the situation there altered slowly, but unavoidably.
When the Nazi Party came to power, censorship
followed, and in conformity with the totalitarian
mind- set anywhere, the most effective form of
censorship was simply to prevent the average Citizen
from having any contact with foreign countries.

The German newspapers were ordered to no longer
deal with non-German bureaus, and the Austrian
newspapers soon followed their lead.

Hjalmar Carlsen wrote a letter home from a journey
abroad in the late 1930s in which he reported how

27

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Hr. Redaktor!

Intet gor sig så bra på tidningens forstå sida

som en god illustration

Presse-Illustrations-Bureau levererar Eder två gånger i veckan en god, aktuell kliché i lik-

En tidligere reklame for PIBs fotoservice til svenske aviser.

An earlier advertisement for PIB’s photo- service for Swedish newspapers.

falder fra. Han nævner også et besøg i Wien hvor alle
de jødiske forretninger er blevet ødelagt.

Mange jødiske borgere var allerede flygtet, heraf en
del unge til Danmark.

Blandt disse var den 19-årige typograf Philipp Plon,
som senere skulle få væsentlig indflydelse for PIB. Der
blev imidlertid ikke uden videre givet opholdstilla-
delse til udlændinge, men en dansk organisation
sørgede for at en del unge jødiske flygtninge fik plads
som landbrugselever på danske gårde.

Med 2. Verdenskrigs udbrud i 1939 forsvandt næsten
alle udenlandske kunder og da Danmark blev besat i
1940 måtte PIB indstille sig på stort set at skulle leve
af de danske provinsaviser og en del svenske kunder.

På PIB forsøgte man at bekæmpe nedgangen med
nye tiltag. Illustrationer og noveller med julemotiver
havde altid været en del af PIBs tilbud, men nu blev

PIB’s old clients were dropping off the subscription
list. He also mentioned a visit to Vienna, where all the
Jewish shops had been destroyed.

Many Jewish citizens had already emigrated, among
them a large portion of the younger ones to Denmark.

One of these young refugees was the 19-year-old
typographer, Philipp Plon, who later would come to
have an important significance to PIB. At that time,
resident permits were not given out as a matter of
course, but a Danish organization helped a great
many of the young Jews get jobs as apprentice farmers
on Danish farms.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, almost all
of PIB’s foreign clients disappeared, and when
Denmark was occupied in 1940, the company was
forced to make do with living off the Danish provincial
newspapers and some Swedish clients.

PIB tried to fight this downward business curve by
adding new features. Illustrations and short stories
with Christmas themes had always been a large part
of the company’s assortment, but now that assortment
was systemized so that all the newspapers received a
full package containing Christmas competitions,
illustrations, crossword puzzles, articles, and short
stories by influential writers. Through an, at times,
very complicated system, PIB insured that every
newspaper got exclusive rights to any given
illustration in their territory (at that time, there were
at least three newspapers in every provincial city).
Envelopes containing PIB’s Christmas features still
land faithfully every year at almost all of the
Scandinavian provincial newspapers.

Classic novels such as Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, The Deerslayer, and many others were
distributed as comic strip adaptations, a tradition that
continued into the 1960s.

And that was the starting shot that led to a complet-
ely new division at PIB: publishing.

28

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Fra PIBs serieudgave af “Onkel Toms hytte”.
From PIB’s strip version of “Uncle Tom's Cabin”.

det sat i system, så alle aviser fik hele pakker med
julekonkurrencer, illustrationer, krydsord, artikler og
noveller af førende forfattere. Gennem et til tider ret
indviklet system sikrede man, at hver avis fik eneret
på en given illustration indenfor deres område
(dengang var der mindst tre aviser i hver provinsby).
Kuverten med PIBs julemateriale havner stadig trofast
hvert år hos stort set hele den skandinaviske provins-
presse.

Klassiske romaner såsom Robinson Crusoe, Onkel
Toms Hytte, Hjortedræber og mange andre blev sendt
ud som tegneserier, en tradition der fortsatte til
1960’erne.

Og det gav startskuddet til en helt ny afdeling på
PIB: forlagsvirksomhed.

Flere af Hjalmar Carlsens børn arbejdede på PIB og
klichefabrikken og blandt dem den unge Per Carlsen,
der var blevet uddannet som typograf.

Det var en nærliggende tanke, at når man alligevel
havde materiale liggende til avisbrug, kunne det
måske også bruges i bogform.

Første forsøg var en tegneserie over H.C. Andersens
Den standhaftige Tinsoldat af Marie Hjuler, der blev
udsendt som børnebilledbog i 1940. Der blev trykt
5.000 eksemplarer med en udsalgspris på 2 kr.

Several of Hjalmar Carlsen’s children worked at PIB
and at the platemaking plant, among them the young
Per Carlsen, who had been educated as a typographer.

It became obvious that as long as there was already
material lying around for newspaper syndication, that
material could also possibly be published in book
form.

PIB’s first attempt at publishing collected a comic
strip based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The
Steadfast Tin Soldier.” The story was adapted by Marie
Hjuler, and was published as a children’s picture book
in 1940. 5,000 copies were printed at a retail price of 2
kroner per copy.

A total sale of 1,500 copies wasn’t all that
encouraging, so the following year the honor of laying
the foundation of a proper publishing company feil to
Ferd’nand.

Selected Ferd’nand strips were published as a
Christmas booklet, and the original print run of 5,000
copies flew off the shelves so rapidly that PIB rushed
to get a second edition of 3,000 copies printed and
sold before the Christmas shopping season was over.
The annual Ferd’nand Christmas booklet became a
fast tradition and was published by the company until
1952, after which Gutenberghus (now Egmont) took

29

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

OH, WHERE, OH, WHERE

IS OUR

^yHERE'S Ferd'nand? We wish
we could tell you, but to be quite
frank about it, we don't know.

Ferd'nand comes from Denmark,
and to-day he has not turned up.
Perhaps he is facing a new adven-
ture, for mines, torpedoes T and
tnarauding Heirtkels add to the penis
of the North Sea these days.

Or perhaps Ferdinand is in a spot
of botlier with the Censor, for Ihe
Censor always has a look at hlm
before he reaches us, But wherever
he is, and whatever trouble he may
be in, we feel sure Ferd’nand will
muddle through, dishevelled perhaps.
but never daunted.

Et samlet salg på 1.500 eksemplarer var ikke just
opmuntrende, og det blev Ferd’nand, som året efter
kom til at danne grundlaget for et egentligt forlag.

Udvalgte striber blev udsendt som et julehæfte og
oplaget på 5.000 revet væk så hurtigt, at man nåede at
få trykt og solgt yderligere 3.000 før julehandlen var
forbi. Julehæftet med Ferd’nand blev en fast tradition
og udkom på forlaget frem til 1962, hvorefter Guten-
berghus (nu Egmont) overtog udgivelsen frem til
1972.

I 1942 startede Per Carlsen så Illustrationsforlaget,
der i dag kendes som Forlaget Carlsen. Forlaget
kunne i startåret tilbyde syv bøger (I 1999 er antallet
af udgivelser oppe på 300).

Blandt udgivelserne i 1942 var et eksempel på PIBs
fotoservice, Året fortalt i billeder. Bogen var et udvalg
af, hvad PIB havde udsendt af pressefotos i årets løb,
men den blev ingen succes. Dels udkom bogen for
sent på grund af papirmangel, dels forhindrede den
tyske censur, at man bragte billeder, der kunne
opfattes som værende til fordel for de allierede.

Det samme skete i 1943, men i 1944 “glemte”
forlaget at sende bogen til censuren og undlod at
reklamere for den. Da bogen nu indeholdt fotos fra
folkestrejken og billeder fra allieret side, blev den en
salgssucces.

2. Verdenskrig gjorde det umuligt at sende materiale til England.
The Luton News forklarer her læserne hvorfor Ferd’nand ikke er at
finde i dagens avis.

WW2 made it impossible to get material to England.

The Luton News here explains to its readers why Ferd’nand is
missing from the paper.

over as publisher until 1972.

As a result of this success, Per Carlsen started in 1942
a company called Illustrationsforlag [Illustration
Publishing Company], which today is known as Forlag
Carlsen [Carlsen Publishing Company]. The company
was able to offer seven books in its first year (in 1999,
the total number of releases is up to 300).

Among the 1942 releases was a sampler of PIB’s
photo service, The Year in Pictures. The book was a
selection of news photos PIB had distributed in the
course of the year, but it wasn’t a success, partly
because it came out too late as a result of paper
shortages, and partly because the German censor
prevented the company from including photos that
could be interpreted as beneficial to the Allies.

The same thing happened in 1943, but in 1944, the
company “forgot” to send the book to the censor and
omitted advertising it. Since the book now contained
photos of the Danish general strike and pictures from
the Allied side, it became a sales success.

The publishing company grew powerfully, and the
three companies — PIB, the platemaking plant, and
the publishing company, became known in common
speech as “Trillingefirmaet” [The Triplet Company].
After Kaaring’s death in 1933, it had once again
become a pure family-owned business where several

30

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Forlaget voksede kraftigt, og i daglig tale blev de tre
virksomheder, PIB, klichefabrikken og forlaget kaldt
“trillingefirmaet”. Efter Kaarings død i 1933 var det
igen blevet et rent familieejet foretagende, hvor flere
medlemmer af Carlsen-familien arbejdede. Det betød
at mange funktioner i de tre virksomheder PIB,
klichefabrikken og forlaget kunne passes af de samme
afdelinger, især hvad angik tegnestuearbejde,
regnskab og salg.

GRÆNSERNE ÅBN ES. . . N O G LE AF DEM

Krigen afsluttedes for Danmarks vedkommende den
4. maj 1945, og forventningerne til fremtiden var store
hos alle, ikke mindst på PIB.

Imidlertid satte rationering og restriktioner for rejser
og valuta kraftige grænser for aktiviteter i udlandet.
Man klarede sig i første omgang med de godt 150
aviser, der dengang var i Danmark, og den voksende
kundekreds i Sverige. Teknisk set forsøgte man hele
tiden at forbedre materialet, og i 1948 kunne man med
lettelse sige endeligt farvel til de besværlige celluloid-
klicheer og erstatte dem med klicheer af plastik.

Den ambitiøse og yderst aktive Per Carlsen
benyttede enhver lejlighed til at rejse som sælger, og
langsomt voksede antallet af udenlandske kunder.
Allerede i 1946 kom han til England og Irland, og med
Marshall-hjælpen kom Tyskland for alvor tilbage på
salgslisterne.

Da forlaget i 1949 tog kontakt til det hollandske
Mårten Toonder-studie, der med fremragende serier
som Tom Puss, Cappy og Panda var ved at bide sig
fast i det europæiske tegneseriemarked, kom PIB også
til at repræsentere Toonder-serierne i Skandinavien.

Under forhandlingerne fortalte en åbenmundet
direktør fra Toonder-studierne glad løs om sine flotte
resultater uden tilsyneladende at have gjort sig klart,
at PIB OGSÅ var en konkurrent.

members of the Carlsen family worked. That meant
that many functions in the three companies could be
håndled by joint departments, especially when it
came to the art department, accounting, and sales.

THE BORDERS ARE OPENED
(SOME OFTHEM)

The war ended on May 4, 1945, as far as Denmark was
concerned, and everyone had great expectations for
the future, not the least at PIB.

In the meantime, rationing and restrictions on travel
and foreign currency put strong limitations on
international business activities. At first, the company
made do with the approximately 150 newspapers that
existed in Denmark then, and with its growing client
list in Sweden. Technologically speaking, constant
attempts were made to improve the quality of
material offered, and in 1948, the company was
relieved to finally be able to dispense with its
bothersome celluloid plates and replace them with
plastic.

The ambitious and highly energetic Per Carlsen used
every opportunity for sales trips, which resulted in a
slowly growing number of foreign clients. As early as
1946, he had made it to England and Ireland, and with
the help of the Marshall Plan, Germany returned to
the company’s client list in a big way.

When the publishing company made contact with
the Dutch Mårten Toonder Studio — who with such
excellent strips as Tom Puss, Cappy, and Panda was
about to take a firm grip on the European comic strip
market — PIB became also the representative for the
Toonder strips in Scandinavia.

31

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Det betød prisstigninger for PIBs kunder, en bedre
økonomi for firmaet og en øget bevidsthed om, at
tegneserier var vejen frem.

Den vigtigste nye kontakt fandt man imidlertid i
USA. Henning Dahl-Mikkelsen emigrerede kort efter
krigen til Californien, og PIB benyttede anledningen
til at forsøge at finde en amerikansk samarbejds-
partner til salg af Ferd’nand i Amerika.

PIB havde solgt Ilglue til en række amerikanske
dagblade fra den store mediegruppe Scripps-Howards
siden 1920'erne. Det var derfor logisk at henvende sig
til Scripps-Howards’ bureau for underholdningsstof,
United Features Syndicate (UFS), der lod Ferd’nand
indgå i deres sortiment. Ferd’nand solgte fint og PIB
fik en underagentaftale med UFS’ skandinaviske
agent. Senere skulle forbindelsen til UFS få afgørende
betydning for PIB.

Det var åbenlyst for enhver, at PIB havde et problem
med tegneserieudvalget. Adamson, Storm P.’s Peter og
Ping, Ferd’nand og de fortsatte serier bygget på
klassiske romaner gav godt, men presset fra især de

During the negotiations, a talkative director from the
Toonder Studio chatted happily away about his fine
profits without, apparently, realizing that PIB was also
a competitor.

The result was a price increase for PIB’s clients, a
better financial result for the company, and a
heightened company awareness that comic strips
were the way to future growth.

The most important new contact made during those
years was made in the USA. Henning Dahl-Mikkelsen
had emigrated shortly after the war to California, and
PIB made use of the occasion to try to find an
American affiliate to seil Ferd’nand in the States.

PIB had sold Ilglue to a string of American daily
newspapers belonging to the large Scripps-Howard
media group since the 1920s. It was therefore logical
to go to Scripps-Howard’s entertainment bureau,
United Features Syndicate (UFS), who added
Ferd’nand to their catalogue. Ferd'nand sold well, and
PIB got a sub-agent deal with UFS’ Scandinavian
agent. This connection to UFS would later come to

PIB på skovtur, 1946. 1 invitationen under-
streges det, at alle selv må medbringe sukker
og rationeringsmærker til smør. Desuden efter-
lyses “ædle givere af kaffemærker".

PIB’s annual picnic, 1946. The invitation
stresses that all must bring their own sugar
and ration coupons for butter as well as a piea
for “ noble donors of coffee- coupons”.

32

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

amerikanske serier var ikke desto mindre føleligt.

Siden 30’erne havde der været amerikanske serier i
de skandinaviske aviser, og især Blondie og Anders
And var blevet umådeligt populære. PIB havde været
for sent ude til at sikre sig rettigheder til nogle af de
store amerikanske serier, og nu lå de hos konkurren-
terne.

Eftersom det samtidigt var PIBs politik i så vid
udstrækning som muligt at producere alting selv,
besluttede man at starte nogle serier, der kunne
konkurrere med de amerikanske.

PIBs svar på Blondie kom i 1947 i form af familie-
serien Hans og Grete, tegnet af den myreflittige
danske vittighedstegner Helge Hall. Serien om den
lille middelklassefamilie blev en storsælger i hele
Norden og var med til at skabe yderligere interesse for
mediet internt i firmaet.

RASMUS^RASMUS OG DE ANDRE

Dagblade i 40’erne og 50’erne var i høj grad aviser for
hele familien, og redaktørerne var meget opmærk-
somme på at der også skulle være stof for børn. PIB
havde hidtil leveret fortsatte illustrerede romaner,
opgaver og anvisninger til hjemmesløjd, men der
manglede egentlige tegneserier til de mindste.

Det var dog ikke et helt ufarligt område at bevæge
sig ind på. Avislæsende forældre forsøger generelt at
holde øje med, hvad deres børn beskæftiger sig med,
men har sjældent tid til at sætte sig ind i det. Ethvert
medie, der opfattes som “nyt”, er derfor meget sårbart
overfor ethvert angreb.

I Danmark kom det første varsel om kommende
problemer i form af en artikel af redaktør Eigil
Steinmetz i Nationaltidende i 1947. Eigil Steinmetz
var som så mange før og siden bekymret over, hvad
han så som pressens faldende kulturelle indflydelse
og brugte amerikanske avistegneseriers popularitet i

have a decisive significance to the company.

It was obvious to everyone that PIB had a problem
with its comic strip catalogue. Adamson, Storm P.’s
Peter and Ping, Ferd’nand, and the continued serials
based on classic novels earned good money, but
pressure from especially the American comic strips
was nevertheless felt.

There had been American comic strips in
Scandinavian newspapers since the 1930s, and
especially Blondie and Donald Duck had become
enormously popular. PIB had jumped on the comic
strip bandwagon too late to get rights to the major
American strips, so now they were håndled by the
competition.

Since at the same time it was PIB’s policy to — as far
as possible — produce everything itself, the company
decided to create some strips that could compete with
the American strips.

PIB’s answer to Blondie came in 1947 in the form of
a family strip named Hans og Grete [Hansel & Gretel],
which was drawn by the prolific Danish gag cartoonist
Helge Hall. The strip about a little nriddle-class family
became a great success all over the Nordic countries,
and helped to create further interest in the medium
within the company.

RASMUS, RASMUS, AND THE OTHERS

Daily newspapers in the 1940s and ’50s were largely
designed to be read by the whole family, and the
editors were very focused on the need to have features
for children. PIB had up to that point delivered
continued illustrated novels, activities, and
instructions for home woodworking projects, but
lacked a proper comic strip for the youngest children.

However, this was not entirely a non-dangerous area
to move into. Newspaper-reading parents generally try

33

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

USA som et skræmmende eksempel.

Det var derfor nødvendigt, at redaktørerne kunne
føle sig på sikker grund, hvis de skulle have en serie
til børn.

Fra en reklame for PIBs børnemateriale.

From an advertisement for materialfor children. The caption reads:
“Children and young people are the subscribers of the future”.

to watch what their children occupy themselves with,
but seldom have time to really look into it. Any
medium that’s considered “new” is therefore suspect,
and very vulnerable to any attack.

The first warning signs of trouble came in Denmark
in 1947 in the form of an article in Nationaltidende by
editor Eigil Steinmetz. He was, like so many before
and since, worried over what he saw as the press’
dwindling cultural influence, and used the American
cornic strips’ popularity in the USA as a frightening
example.

It was therefore necessary that editors could feel that
they were on safe ground before they would buy a
strip aimed at children.

They got this guarantee from a school teacher who
had already made a name for himself as an
imaginative storyteller and expert in activities for
children. His name was Jørgen Clevin, and he had
debuted in 1945 with a picture book about Rasmus
the ostrich.

It developed eventually into a proper comic strip.
“Finally, there’s now an educational comic strip for
children and adults,” PIB wrote in a promotional
brochure.

Seen with contemporary eyes, Rasmus the Ostrich is
so politically incorrect that the word “educational”
should certainly not have been used in connection
with it. The heavily caricatured drawings of African
children in ragged clothes (children who also smoked)
will undoubtedly give rise to sharp protests today.

But that was another time and Jørgen Clevin’s Africa
was a fantasy world with no connection to the real
Africa. The strip about an ostrich named Rasmus was
praised from all parties and helped to turn Jørgen
Clevin into an institution to Danish children.

Den fik de via en skolelærer, der allerede havde Clevin’s growing workload meant that he soon had to

skabt sig et navn som fabulerende fortæller og give up the comic strip business in favor of a career

ekspert i aktiviteter til børn. Hans navn var Jørgen that encompassed schoolbooks, children’s hooks,

34

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

RASMUS

Clevin, og han havde debuteret i 1945 med en
billedbog om strudsen Rasmus.

Det udviklede sig til en egentlig tegneserie. “Nu
kommer endelig den pædagogisk rigtige tegneserie
for børn og voksne,” skrev PIB stolt i en reklame-
folder.

Set med nutidens øjne er Strudsen Rasmus så
politisk ukorrekt, at ordet “pædagogik” næppe ville
blive brugt i den sammenhæng. De stærkt karikerede
tegninger af afrikanske børn (der tilmed røg) i laset
tøj ville utvivlsomt afføde skarpe reaktioner i dag.

Men tiden var en anden, og Jørgen Clevins Afrika var
en fantasiverden uden forbindelse med det virkelige
Afrika. Serien om Strudsen Rasmus blev rost fra alle
sider og var med til at gøre Jørgen Clevin til en insti-
tution for danske børn.

Clevins stigende arbejdsbyrde gjorde, at han snart
måtte opgive tegneseriebranchen til fordel for en
karriere, der involverede skolebøger, børnebøger,
radio og TV.

På PIB var irritationen til at tage og føle på. Nu
havde man lige fået en dansk successerie med 26
abonnenter, og så gik tegneren sin vej. Man måtte
finde en erstatning og vel at mærke en erstatning af

radio, and TV.

The irritation was palpable at PIB. Just at the point
when they had finally succeeded with a Danish strip
and had signed up 26 subscribers, the artist walked
away from it. They had to find a replacement, and
most definitely a replacement of the highest possible
quality.

And that came in the form of a second Rasmus:
Rasmus Klump (Petzi).

Vilhelm Hansen, at the age of 51, was known as a
skilied advertising artist and illustrator. He specialized
in drawings of animals and elves, and for several years
had provided illustrations for PIB’s Christmas
material.

In 1951, Per Carlsen asked him to try his hånd at a
children’s comic strip for a fixed rate of 30 crowns per
strip. Hansen drew several different suggestions, and a
turde and a monkey were considered as main
characters before it was decided to choose a little
bear.

Artistically, Vilhelm Hansen belonged already then to
an earlier generation of cartoonists, since his careful,
clear style harkened back to turn-of-the-century
illustrated stories.

35

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

højest tænkelig kvalitet.

Og den kom i form af en anden Rasmus: Rasmus
Klump.

Vilhelm Hansen var i en alder af 51 år kendt som en
dygtig reklametegner og illustrator. Han var specialist
i tegninger af dyr og nisser og havde i flere år leveret
illustrationer til PIBs julemateriale.

I 1951 bad Per Carlsen ham om at forsøge sig med
en børnetegneserie mod et fast honorar på 30 kroner
pr. stribe. Vilhelm Hansen lavede forskellige forslag,
og både en skildpadde og en abe var på tale som
hovedpersoner, før valget faldt på en lille bjørn.

Tegnemæssigt hørte Vilhelm Hansen allerede

His stories were continued, very long, and paced in
an almost-sauntering tempo, always in baby steps.
Petzi was, in other words, indisputably old-fashioned
from birth.

The readers, though, were totally unconcerned with
that. The children identified with the experiences of
Petzi and his friends, and were fascinated by the
amount of detail in the drawings. Adults were amused
by the elever touches, and enjoyed a story that —
without preaching — underscored the value of work,
curiosity, and helpfulness.

Petzi became, and still is today, one of PIB’s most
important strips. After the first couple of stories,

Fumablad for C. C.. P. I B oq I F.

Udtoeim« IoiIiqIm<*.*i»

Nr. 4 31. d*comb«i 1954 2. årgang

Rasmus Klump erobrer verden!

Når *1 nu å«l forlod
le liill n*n vor helles ven
KANMl'S KLUMP, er
del ganske naturligt, at
vi faral henvender ot
til ban» fa it rene ophav.
Iraneren l'lfå. //«i«i»ru
Vilhelm Hansen rr en
bred, slotil skikkelse,
fyldt Ul runden aird del
Jarvise, Joviale »buske
luae. Al del netop er
Uam. iler Irgnrr Hasen«
Klump, ril meppe for-
undre nogen. Vilh. Hun
orn horer til de* slags
dejlige mennesker, som
altid har Ud. V| beder
om al få en samtale
med ham en dag. da han
alligevel slider PIR’s
trapper. Or beredvillig
som allid kommer hun
straks. Del féeolc. ri Hk
at hare. var, al vi havde
udtryk! os forkert. Del
vur PUl’s trapper, som sled
hum. Det kan vi nu ogoi

kiiitmi Klump i dm ailliwr.
haa er mest kendt.

på I konlomi-essigr rutinearbejde I lu
godt I passede ham ikke i benåde" I suuitldig kne veile for meget ar-

resullut af dem gode
sumarbrjdeT De mor-
somme ug psykologisk
rigtige tekster er skre-
vet af frsi (aorta Ilunsen.

H asmus Kluru p blev
forste gang puhllrrrrt I
llerlingske Aftenavis if.
f 7, nor I9AI, men ogoå
for den lid samarbejde-
de Vilh. Kanoen med
PIB Bl. a. hor han hvert
år tnrrvr de Heata uimmrt
til vort jule matenu le.
OH vur også Vilh. Han-
sen, Mim illustrerede de
i små gnvehogrr. »n«n
lllustrallonoforlagel har
solgt til en lang rurkkr
lunde.

Vor Kltimp er imid-
Irrthl ikke den eaesle
tegneserie. Vi III. Hansen
har forfattet, De hasker
sikkert også Firlinger-
ne. soen gik i liragere
»Hjemmels. Men lo oerirr

Et personaleblad fra 1954. Forsidehistorien
handler om den nye succes, Rasmus Klump.

A company newsletter from 1954. The frontpage
story is about the new success, Petzi.”Petzi
conquers the world!"

36

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

dengang til en tidligere generation, da hans omhyg-
gelige, klare streg førte tilbage til århundredeskiftets
tegnede fortællinger.

Historierne var fortsatte, meget lange og foregik i et
nærmest slentrende tempo, hele tiden i børnehøjde.
Rasmus Klump var kort sagt fra fødslen indiskutabelt
gammeldags.

Det var læserne imidlertid bedøvende ligeglade
med. Børnene levede med i Rasmus Klumps og hans
vetiners oplevelser og var fascineret af mængden af
detaljer i billederne. De voksne morede sig over de
finurlige indslag og glædede sig over en serie, der
uden at løfte pegefingeren understregede værdien af
arbejde, nysgerrighed og hjælpsomhed.

Rasmus Klump blev og er den dag i dag en af PIBs
helt store serier. Efter de første par historier fik
Vilhelm Hansen hjælp af sin hustru, Carla Hansen, til
at skrive historierne. Carla Hansen blev også en af
PIBs faste forfattere på et ugentligt illustreret eventyr
og julenoveller.

Allerede fra starten stod det klart, at man med
Rasmus Klump havde fået fat i noget unikt. Da stribe
19 blev afleveret på redaktionen, forhøjede Per
Carlsen spontant honoraret til 35 kr. om dagen før
serien overhovedet var blevet solgt, noget der hverken
før eller siden er sket på PIB. Der blev dog snart
indgået en royaltyaftale, så Vilhelm og Carla Hansen
fik en rimeligere andel af de betydelige indtægter som
serien indbragte.

Da salgsarbejdet startede, gik det pænt i Skandi-
navien og til almindelig forbløffelse for alle forry-
gende i Tyskland. Tyske aviser er traditionelt ikke
meget for tegneserier, men Rasmus Klump faldt man
for med et brag.

I Berlin blev en kopi af Rasmus Klumps skib Mary
kørt gennem byens gader til en fest på Berlins
stadion, hvor 40.000 mennesker råbte på Klump og
hans venner.

Vilhelm Hansen got help in the writing from his wife,
Carla Hansen. She also became one of PIB’s steady
writers of weekly illustrated fairy tales and Christmas
stories.

It was obvious already at the beginning that in Petzi,
the company had got its hånds on something special.
When strip number 19 was delivered to the office, Per
Carlsen spontaneously raised the pay rate to 35
crowns a day, even before the comic strip had been
sold — something that neither before nor since has
ever happened at PIB. A royalty agreement was soon
made, though, so Vilhelm and Carla Hansen got a
fairer share of the considerable income generated by
the strip.

When the selling work started, the strip sold well in
Scandinavia, and to everyone’s amazement, incredibly
well in Germany. German newspapers do not
traditionally care much for comic strips, but they feli
noisily for Petzi.

In Berlin, a copy of Petzi’s ship “Mary” was driven
through the city’s Street to a party at Berlin’s stadium,
where 40,000 people cheered for Petzi and his friends.

The stories were quickly collected into hooks, which
have since become indispensable fixtures in children’s
bedrooms all over northern Europe. All together, the
strip has either been collected into hooks or published
in newspapers in 25 countries in the years since it
debuted.

Vilhelm and Carla Hansen continued to write and
draw the strip until the mid-1960s. Afterwards, then-
editor Jørgen Sonnergaard tried out several different
artists, among them the later-famous Donald Duck
artist Vicar. The final choice, though, feil to the Danish
cartoonist Tove Nørgaard, while first Jørgen
Sonnergaard and later Paul Schiøtt and Per
Sanderhage wrote the stories. The newspaper strip
was discontinued in 1983, but new stories are still
being written and drawn for children’s hooks.

37

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Historierne begyndte hurtigt at udkomme i bogform
og har siden været uundværlige i Nordeuropas børne-
værelser. I alt er serien udkommet i bogform eller
bragt som avisserie i 25 lande i tidens løb.

Vilhelm og Carla Hansen fortsatte med at tegne
serien til midten af 1960’erne. Herefter forsøgte den
daværende redaktør Jørgen Sonnergaard sig med
forskellige tegnere, blandt andre den senere kendte
Anders And- tegner Vicar. Valget faldt dog på den
danske tegner Tove Nørgaard, mens først Jørgen
Sonnergaard og senere Paul Schiøtt og Per
Sanderhage skrev historierne. Avisstriben lukkede i
1983, men der skrives og tegnes stadig nye historier
som børnebøger.

Den store succes gav PIB hvad man kun kan betegne
som et luksusproblem: når der var flere aviser i et
område og en af dem havde eneret på Rasmus Klump,
hvad så med de andre? Svaret var naturligvis flere
børneserier!

I 1952 startede Eventyrklubben af Kjeld “Simon”
Simonsen, og selv om den aldrig nåede Rasmus
Klumps popularitet, var det en både veltegnet og
velfortalt serie i klassisk stil. En helt anden type
børneserie var Bim & Barn, der var tegnet i en bevidst
løs, næsten skødesløs stil. Serien var tegnet af Viggo
Ludvigsen, der siden Oscar Jacobssons død i 1946
havde tegnet Adamson. Bim & Barn blev i 1969
overtaget af Ib “Iber” Bjerregård, der tegnede den
frem til serien lukkede i 70’erne.

" Eventyrklubben ”

‘The Adventure Club’

The strip’s great success gave PIB what can only be
considered a luxury problem: when there were several
newspapers in the same territory, and only one of
them could have the exclusive rights to Petzi, what
can you seil to the others? The answer was, of course,
to create more children’s strips!

In 1952, Eventyrklubben [The Adventure Club] was
started by Kjeld “Simon” Simonsen, and even though
it never matched Petzi’s popularity, it was both a well-
drawn and a well-written strip in classical style. A
completely different type of children's strip was Bim &
Barn, which was drawn in a consciously loose, almost
careless style. The cartoonist was Viggo Ludvigsen,
who had taken over Adamson after Oscar Jacobssons
death in 1946. Bim & Bam was itself taken over in
1969 by Ib “Iber” Bjerregård, who drew it until the
strip was closed in the ’70s.

MIDT I EN JAZZTID

Der var langt.. .endog meget langt.. .fra børneseriernes
venlige smådyr til, hvad en lille gruppe tegnere
arbejdede på i samme periode.

Under besættelsen var der dukket et “vovet”

IN THE MIDST OF A JAZZ AGE

It was a long way — even very long — from the small,
friendly animals in children’s comic strips to what a
little group of cartoonists worked in the same period.
During the occupation, a “daring” humor magazine

38

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

humorblad for voksne op. Det hed Hudibras og
blandt de mange bidragsydere kom flere til at præge
udviklingen af danske tegneserier.

Tegneren og jazzmusikeren Siegfried “Cosper”
Cornelius, der sammen med Asger Jerrild redigerede
bladet det første år, sagde engang spydigt om
tidsånden: “Der var ikke så meget at lave i 40’erne og
50’erne. Man kunne gå i det Kongelige Teater eller
læse Hudibras.”

Helt så firkantede var hverken 40’erne eller 50’erne
nu næppe, men sikkert er det, at mange unge følte
tidsånden kvælende provinsiel, og den ældre
generation var naturligvis ved at få åndenød af
bekymring over en ungdom, der var til jazz, rejser og
eksperimenter.

Cospers speciale var absurde og barokke vittigheder,
og han fandt en ligesindet i tegneren Jørgen
Mogensen, der også blev medarbejder og redaktør på
Hudibras. I slutningen af 40’erne rejste de til Frankrig
og begyndte her at samarbejde på en serie under

Cosperier

for adults had turned up. It was named Hudibras, and
among its many contributors were several who went
on to put their mark on the development of Danish
comic strips.

Cartoonist and jazz musician Siegfried “Cosper”
Cornelius, who co-edited the magazine in its first year
together with Asger Jerrild, once sarcastically said
about that period, “There wasn’t all that much to do in
the 1940s and ’50s. You could either go to the Royal
Theatre or read Hudibras.”

Neither the ’40s or the ’50s were quite so rigid, but
it’s safe to say that the young felt that the spirit of the
times was chokingly provincial, while the older
generation was, of course, chocked by worrying over
the youths who were into jazz, travel, and lifestyle
experimentation.

Cosper’s speciality was absurd or baroque jokes, and
he found someone of like mind in the cartoonist
Jørgen Mogensen, who also became an employee and
editor at Hudibras. At the end of the ’40s, they
traveled to France together, where they began to
collaborate on a strip, signing it with the pseudonym
MOCO.

Their strip debuted in Le Figaro under the name
Presto, but even in France there were responsible
intellectuals, who complained that a newspaper could
even think about publishing something as brain-dead
as a comic strip.

Presto had a short life, but was revived when it
landed at PIB, now titled Alfredo.

On first glance, Alfredo could seem to be yet another
pantomime strip on the same level as Adamson and
Ferd’nand, but the differences were nevertheless
significant. Alfredo was a shameless skirt chaser, and
the two cartoonists’ sense for the absurd always
showed up. Alfredo did well in international
conrpetition, and has been published in over 100
newspapers, among thenr 40 in America.

39

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

pseudonymet MOCO.

Deres serie startede i Le
Figaro med navnet Presto,
men også i Frankrig rejste
ansvarlige intellektuelles
stemmer sig mod, at en avis
skulle bringe noget så
fordummende som en
tegneserie.

Presto fik en kort levetid,
men fik fornyet liv, da serien havnede hos PIB, nu
under navnet Alfredo.

Umiddelbart kunne Alfredo virke som endnu en
pantomimestribe i lighed med Adamson og Ferd’nand,
men forskellene var alligevel betydelige. Alfredo var en
skørtejæger uden skam i livet, og de to tegneres sans
for det absurde dukkede uafbrudt op. Alfi'edo klarede
sig fint i den internationale konkurrence og har gået i
over 100 aviser, heraf omkring 40 amerikanske.

Cosper stod også bag en daglig enkelt- vittigheds
serie, en såkaldt panel, med den selvbevidste titel
Cosperier. En skarp præcis streg og en barok humor
skaffede ham mange fans, der også kunne glæde sig
over hans serie Mr. Mox.

Jørgen Mogensen kom til PIB, da hans ugentlige
serie Poeten og Lillemor, der var begyndt i Politikens
legendariske søndagstillæg, Magasinet, blev en
dagstribe i 1952. Poeten og Lillemor er kun en af
mange serier fra Jørgen Mogensens hånd, men
indiskutabelt den kendteste. I årenes løb er serien,
med hjælp fra tekstforfattere som Mogens Dalgård og
Per Vadmand, blevet indbegrebet af “danskhed”.
Poeten og Lillemor blev så populær, at der blev lavet
tre spillefilm baseret på serien.

At serien skulle nå at blive opfattet som indbegrebet
af dansk hygge var absolut utilsigtet fra Mogensens
side, og Poeten og Lillemor er nok den mest censu-
rerede serie i dansk tegneseriehistorie. Selv om

Cosper was also behind a daily single-joke strip, a
so-called “gag panel,” with the self-referential title
Cosperier. A clean, precise style and a baroque sense
of humor gained him many fans, who also had the
chance to enjoy yet another of his strips, Mr. Mox.

Jørgen Mogensen signed on with PIB when his
weekly strip, Poeten og Lillemor [The Poet and
Momsy] — which had begun in Politiken’s legendary
Sunday supplement, “Magasinet” — became a daily
strip in 1952. Poeten og Lillemor is just one of the
many strips from Jørgen Mogensens hånd, but it is
inarguably the most famous. The strip — with help
from such dialogue writers as Mogens Dalgård and
Per Vadmand — has become over the years the very
model of the concept of “Danishness.” It became so
popular that three feature films were made based on
Poeten og Lillemor.

That his strip should come to be considered the
definition of Danish “coziness” was absolutely
unintentional on the part of Jørgen Mogensen, and
Poeten og Lillemor is probably the most censored
comic strip in Danish comic strip history. Even though
the social satire in Poeten og Lillemor is generally
friendly, you can always be sure that someone will
angrily take offense from it. And Mogensen’s naked joy
over

Poeten og Lillemor
The Poet and Momsy

Alfredo

40

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

samfundssatiren i Poeten og Lillemor er generelt er
venlig, kan man altid være sikker på, at nogen hidser
sig op over den. Også Mogensens utilslørede glæde
ved at tegne utilslørede piger har medført adskillige
skarpe reaktioner blandt redaktører og læsere.

Blandt Mogensens andre serier skal nævnes den lille
en-spaltede daglige vittighed om den kønne omend
ikke alt for kvikke pige Lullubelle, som PIBs chefre-
daktør Jørgen Sonnergaard skrev tekster til.

DEN “NY” TID

drawing naked women has led to coundess critical
reactions from both editors and readers.

Among Mogensen’s other strips, mention should be
made of the litde one-column daily gag panel about
the pretty, but not-too-bright, giri Lulubelle, which
PIB’s Editor-in-Chief Jørgen Sonnergaard wrote
dialogue for.

THE “NEW” AGE

1950’erne var en forandringens tid for PIB. Efter
Hjalmar Carlsens død i 1951 havde tre af hans børn
overtaget ledelsen af virksomhederne. Hugo Carlsen
blev direktør for Carlsen Cliché, Per Carlsen direktør
for Forlaget Carlsen og delte direktørposten for PIB
med søsteren Kirsten Bang.

Redaktør på PIB var Carl-Otto Johansen. Johansen
var selv en fremragende krydsordskonstruktør og
insisterede på kun at bruge de bedste konstruktører til
PIBs krydsord, en politik der er fulgt siden. Johansen
deltog også i produktionen af PIBs politiske satirer,
hvor han sammen med satiretegneren Mogens Juhl
startede en forsendelse af satiretegninger til danske og
svenske aviser. Det lykkedes i øvrigt Mogens Juhl, der
tegnede de politiske satirer for PIB frem til starten af
80’erne, at skaffe den
danske regering en
harmdirrende protest
fra Kina på halsen. I en
af hans tegninger blev
det (kraftigt) antydet, at
Mao ikke havde helt
kontrol med kulturrevo-
lutionen. Den danske
regering greb dog IKKE
ind.

The 1950’s were a decade of change for PIB. After
Hjalmar Carlsen’s death in 1951, three of his children
had taken over the management of his companies.
Hugo Carlsen became Managing Director for Carlsen
Cliché, and Per Carlsen became both Managing
Director for Forlaget Carlsen and PIB, the latter chair
shared with his sister, Kirsten Bang.

The Editor at PIB was Carl-Otto Johansen, who was
himself a brilliant crossword-puzzle designer, and who
insisted on using only the hest puzzle designers for
PIB’s crosswords, a policy which has been followed
ever since. Johansen also took part in the production
of PIB’s editorial cartoons, a duty that led him and the
editorial cartoonist Mogens Juhl to start a regular
shipment of editorial cartoons to Danish and Swedish
newspapers. Mogens Juhl,
who drew the editorial
cartoons for PIB up until
the beginning of the 1980s,
was along the way
responsible for bringing an
indignant Chinese protest
down on the heads of the
Danish government. In
one of his cartoons, he
implied (strongly) that

Hugo Carlsen

Per Carlsen

41

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Huset i Købmagergade 9 summede af aktivitet
døgnet rundt, og det var ikke ukompliceret at have så
mange faggrupper og forskelligartede afdelinger
samlet under et tag. Alle, der har haft forbindelse med
bladverdenen, ved, at teknisk og redaktionelt
personale ikke nødvendigvis går godt i spænd
sammen, især ikke når pladsforholdene bliver trange.

Det gjaldt naturligvis også for PIB. Især var der
problemer for forlagets lager. Problemet blev til en vis
grad løst, da forlaget flyttede til Uplandsgade 38 på
Amager, og de fleste interne stridigheder blev løst i
mindelighed.

PIB fungerede stadig som nyhedsbureau for fotos
med natredaktion, og man kunne være endog meget
effektiv. En sporvognsulykke i København i 1958 skete
klokken 9.41. Klokken 10.57 havde man fotografier fra
ulykkesstedet i hænderne, og klokken 11.13 blev
klicheerne sendt afsted så de kunne nå første tog til
provinsen med afgang 11.27.

Fotoarkivet var vokset betydeligt, og selv om der
selvfølgelig var et arkivsystem, benyttede man sig i
vid udstrækning af frøken Elisabeth Petersens formi-
dable hukommelse. Hun var begyndt i firmaet i 1919
og havde ry for aldrig at glemme et fotografi, der
havde været gennem hendes hænder. Petersen var

Mao didn’t quite have control of the Cultural
Revolution. The Danish government chose not to
interfere, though.

The offices at Købmagergade 9 buzzed with activity
around the clock, and it wasn’t altogether
uncomplicated to have so many different skilied
trades and widely-varied departments gathered under
one roof. Everyone who has ever had connections to
the publishing industry knows that technical and
editorial personnel don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye,
especially when a workplace is crowded.

That was, naturally enough, also true at PIB, where
conflicts were especially bad over the publishing
company’s inventory. These problems were mostly
solved when the publishing company moved to
Uplandsgade 38 on Amager, and most of the internal
conflicts were solved amicably.

PIB was still a functioning news photo bureau at that
time, with a night desk, and could be very effective. A
streetcar accident in Copenhagen in 1958 occurred at
9:41. By 10:57, PIB had photographs of the accident
scene in hånd, and at 11:13 the printing plates were
shipped out so that they could make it aboard the first
train to the provinces, which left at 11:27.

The photo morgue had grown considerably, and

even though there was an archive

Mogens Juhl tegnede PIBs
daglige og ugentlige satireteg-
ninger frem til 1980’erne.
Senere blev satiren overtaget
af Bent Eskestad, Peter
Heydenreich og Bo Secher.

Mogens Juhl drew PIB’s daily
and weekly editorial cartoons
until the 1980’s. After him
Bent Eskestad, Peter Heyden-
reich and Bo Secher have
worked on this feature.

system, of course, most PIB
employees made wide-spread use
of Miss Elisabeth Petersen’s
formidable memory. She had begun
working at the company in 1919,
and had a reputation for never
having forgotten a photograph that
had passed through her hånds.
Petersen was also a talented
mechanic and still repaired her own
motorcycle herself, because she
wouldn’t trust her dear “Rex” to just

42

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

desuden en dygtig mekaniker, og hun reparerede
stadig selv sin gamle motorcykel i midten af
1950’erne, da hun ikke ville betro sin kære “Rex” til en
eller anden “moderne cigaretrygende fyr”.

I “Skrivestuen” arbejdedes der på højtryk. Flere af
“skrivemaskinedamerne” var udlændinge, da de så
også kunne fungere som oversættere. Dette gjaldt
blandt andet for de to svenskere, Margaretha
Christensen og Ingrid ffornung, som fandt sig til rette
på PIB og blev til de gik på pension i 1990 efter
henholdsvis 39 og 35 år i firmaet. De indførte et
populært svensk islæt ved at arrangere årlige Lucia-
optog gennem firmaet med glogg-udskænkning til de
morgenduelige, og svenske snapseviser er stadig et
fast indslag ved PIBs skovture og julefrokoster.

1950’erne var også årtiet, hvor det første alvorlige
angreb på tegneserier fandt sted. I USA gav psykia-
teren Fredric Wertham startskuddet til en voldsom og
lidet velafbalanceret kritik af tegneseriemediet. Selv
om angrebet primært var rettet mod tegneserieblade,
fik det også konsekvenser for avisserierne.

I Europa greb anti- amerikanske kredse begærligt
chancen for at sammenkæde USA med begreber som
vold og sex og fik ellers fornuftige mennesker til at
hoppe på vognen.

Set i historisk lys vil man straks kunne genkende
seriemodstandernes argumenter, der allerede var hørt
i kampen mod så kulturødelæggende fænomener som
film, populærlitteratur og jazz. Senere hørte man dem
igen med søvndyssende regelmæssighed, efterhånden
som rock’n’roll, TV, rollespil, rap og videospil dukkede
op i den nordeuropæiske bevidsthed. Tegneserier
kom igen under beskydning i 1970’erne, men trods en
masse bulder og offentlig omtale fandt angriberne
ikke den store støtte i denne omgang. Set i bakspejlet
var årsagen selvindlysende. Det er ret svært at
overbevise større grupper af mennesker om at tegne-
serier er fordummende, når hovedparten af har læst

any “hip, cigarette-smoking guy.”

They worked at high-velocity in [the typing pool] .
Several of the “typing ladies” was foreigners, because
they could also do double-duty as translators. This
was also true of the two Swedes, Margaretha
Christensen and Ingrid Hornung, who found their
second home at PIB and stayed there until they retired
after respectively 39 and 35 years at the company.

They introduced a popular Swedish touch by
arranging yearly Santa Lucia processions through the
company, and glogg-tastings for the morning-fresh
employees. Swedish snaps-drinking songs are still a
fixed ritual at PIB’s company picnics and Christmas
parties.

The 1950s were also the decade in which the first
serious attacks on comic strips took place. In the
United States, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham set off a
wave of violent and hardly balanced criticism of the
comics medium. Even though the attacks were
primarily aimed at comic hooks, they also had
repercussions on newspaper strips.

In Europe, anti-American circles greedily grabbed
the chance to link the United States with such
morality-laden concepts as violence and sex, and
convinced otherwise-reasonable people to jump on
their bandwagon.

From an historical point of view, it is possible to
instantly recognize the comics attackers’ argument,
which had already been heard in similar fights against
such cultural-destroying phenomena as film, popular
fiction, and jazz. Later, the same arguments were used
again with mind-numbing regularity when rock ’n’
roli, TV] role-playing games, rap music, and video
games surfaced in the northern-European
consciousness. Comics once again came under attack
in the 1970s, but despite a lot of noise and public
attention, the attackers didn’t win much support that
time. Seen in hindsight, it’s obvious what the reason

43

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

serier hele deres barndom.

I 1950’erne var man mindre hærdede overfor
angreb, og i PIBs personaleblad fra 1954 noteres det
dydigt, at man på grund af den voksende modvilje
mod brutale serier i pressen har stoppet med at
distribuere Tarzan i Danmark.

Det gjorde dog ikke noget større indtryk på Ekstra-
Bladet, der bragte serien og derefter fik den tilsendt
direkte fra USA.

Carl-Otto Johansen forlod redaktionsposten i 1959
for at koncentrere sig om at lave krydsord, både
direkte til aviser og til PIBs krydsordsabonnenter.

Hans afløser blev Jørgen Sonnergaard, som straks gik i
gang med en kostbar, men nødvendig ændring af
PIBs tegneseriepolitik.

Indtil da stod teksten til PIBs tegneserier altid trykt
under striben. Talebobler var bandlyst. Officielt fordi
de fik serierne til at “billige” ud, men nok så meget
fordi det var i virkeligheden VAR billigere at sætte
teksten under billederne.

Ved brug af talebobler måtte dialogen skrives ind i
boblerne, og et særligt sæt laves til hvert sprog-
område. Hvad der også krævede flere mandetimer på
de enkelte serier.

Umiddelbart... og det vil enhver håndtekster
gladeligt skrive under på... synes udgiften til at få
tekstet en seriestribe begrænset. Til gengæld vil

Tarzan

for their mass-rejection was — it’s really hard to
convince a large group of people that reading comics
will rot their minds, when most members of the group
had read comics throughout their childhoods.

In the 1950s, comic strip professionals were less
thick-skinned when it came to attacks, and in a
company newsletter from 1954, it was virtuously
noted that, because of the press’ growing antagonism
toward violent comic strips, the company had stopped
distributing Tarzan in Denmark.

However, that didn’t make much of an impression on
Ekstra Bladet, which was publishing the strip, and
which subsequently got it sent directly from the
States.

Carl-Otto Johansen resigned his editor’s job in 1959
in order to concentrate on designing crossword
puzzles, both directly for individual newspapers and
for distribution to PIB’s crossword subscribers. His
replacement was Jørgen Sonnergaard, who
immediately got busy with an expensive, though
necessary, change of PIB’s comic strip policy.

Until then, the dialogue in PIB’s strips was always
printed under the strip. Word balloons were banned,
officially because they made the strips look “cheap,”
but probably mostly because in reality it was less
expensive to typeset the dialogue under the strips.

With the introduction of word balloons to PIB’s
strips, the dialogue had to be written in the balloons
and a special copy made for every language area. This
process required several manhours of labor for each
individual strip.

Apparently — and this statement will be heartily
endorsed by every comic strip letterer — the expense
of lettering a comic strip is estimated to be minor. On
the other hånd, every comic strip bureau will just as
enthusiastically point out that comic strips don’t
generate that large an income, and that even small
cost increases can turn a profit into a loss.

44

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

En PIB -julefrokost i 1950' erne.
A Christmas party in the 1950’s.

ethvert tegneseriebureau med lige så stor ildhu
hævde, at tegneserier generelt ikke giver de store
indtægter, og at selv små marginaler kan gøre
forskellen mellem et overskud og et underskud.

Så nu, godt 50 år efter at man i USA havde
gennemført den banebrydende nyskabelse med at
sætte talebobler ind i de korte billedfortællinger, man
kaldte tegneserier, begyndte PIB modstræbende at
bede tegnerne om at sætte bobler i deres striber.

Serietekstning, eller håndtekstning som det normalt
kaldes, er på mange måder et regulært fag, der kræver
masser af øvelse og særlige evner for nøjagtighed og
akkuratesse. Selv om PIB i tidens løb har haft fastan-
satte håndtekstere, har det mest drejet sig om free-
lance medarbejdere.

ffåndtekstning kræver egentlig ikke noget specielt
forhold til serier, og folk fra de mest forskellige
faggrupper har i årenes løb arbejdet med tekstning
for PIB. At der er porcelænsmalere imellem er måske
ikke overraskende, men også billedkunstnere,
tidligere professionelle soldater og en punk-musiker
har haft arbejde som håndtekstere.

So now — more than 50 years after the United States
had braken new Creative ground by including word
balloons in the short sequential cartoon series they
called comic strips — an unwilling PIB began to ask
cartoonists to draw word balloons in their strips.

Hånd lettering of comic strip word balloons is in
many ways a real craft, one that requires a lot of
practice and a special aptitude for precision and
accuracy. Although PIB has sometimes employed on-
staff letterers over the years, most of the time the job
has been håndled by freelancers.

Hånd lettering doesn’t really require any special
relationship to comic strips, and people from widely
different trades have worked as letterers for PIB in the
course of time. That there are porcelain painters
included on the list is maybe not surprising, but fine-
art painters, former professional soldiers, and even a
punk musician have also worked as handletterers.

45

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

ACTION!

Modviljen mod “brutale serier” gik i al stilfærdighed i
sig selv i begyndelsen af 1960’erne, og de danske
bekæmpere af vejrmøller var nu optaget af et lige så
formålsløst korstog mod engelsksproget popmusik.

Samtidigt var “hårdkogte” kriminalromaner blevet
meget populære. Især havde Peter Cheyneys romaner
om detektiven Lemmy Caution mange fans, ikke
mindst som følge af en række franskproducerede
filmudgaver med Eddie Constantine i hovedrollen.

Gennem det spanske bureau Dalger Press fik
Sonnergaard kontakt med en ung spansk tegner,

Jaime Valvé. Nogle prøvestriber blev tegnet og
Cheynes bogagent kontaktet med henblik på en
aftale, hvor PIB kunne lave en serieudgave på licens.

Det var agenten imidlertid ikke indstillet på. Sonner-
gaard og PIBs salgschef Ivan Hytten stak hovederne
sammen, og en dag tog Hytten til Berlin, hvor Eddie
Constantine var ved at indspille en film.

Et møde blev arrangeret, og den elskværdige
skuespiller gav fornøjet tilladelse til at hans kendte
fysiognomi blev brugt til en hovedperson i en
europæisk tegneserie med titlen Eddie. Ifølge overleve-
ringen foregik mødet på en bar, varede meget længe og
Constantine krævede helt i Lemmys ånd en passende
betaling for tilladelsen... en god flaske whisky.

ACTIONj

Opposition to “violent comic strips” quietly died out
in the beginning of the 1960s, and the Danish tilters-
at-windmills were now occupied with a just-as-
pointless crusade against English-language pop
music.

At the same time, “hard-boiled" detective novels had
become very popular. Especially Peter Cheyney’s
novels featuring the detective Lemmy Caution had
many fans, not the least as a result of a series of
French-produced films starring Eddie Constantine in
the leading role.

Through Dalger Press, a Spanish artists’ agency, PIB
editor Sonnergaard made contact with a young
Spanish artist named Jaime Valvé. He drew several
presentation strips, and Cheyney’s book agent was
contacted with the idea of making a deal by which PIB
could license the rights to a comic strip version of
Cheyney’s detective series.

However, that was something Cheyney’s agent wasn't
agreeable to do. Sonnergaard and PIB's Sales Chief,

Ivan Hytten put their heads together, and the result
was that one day Hytten traveled to Berlin, where
Eddie Constantine was about to star in a movie.

A meeting was arranged and the friendly actor
delightedly gave his permission to use his well-known

Introduktions-stribe fra den første
Eddie-historie.

Introduction- strip from the fir st
Eddie-story.

46

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Eddie blev en øjeblikkelig succes og nåede op på 60
aviskunder. Sonnergaard skrev historierne og indledte
hermed en tradition, hvor PIBs til enhver tid siddende
redaktør også fungerer som forfatter.

Lige så hurtigt som Eddie var slået an, lige så hurtigt
sluttede eventyret, da den engelske tegneserieversion
af James Bond-bøgerne kom på markedet.

Jaime Valvé var til almindelig forbløffelse for alle
dukket op i Danmark, da han havde fået den opfat-
telse, at det drejede sig om et fast arbejde, snarere
end en free lance opgave. Han bosatte sig i Danmark
og fik også fast arbejde på PIB, hvor han udover Eddie
i de efterfølgende år også tegnede flere serieudgaver
af klassiske romaner, og illustrerede krydsord. Senere
blev Valvé en af de mest benyttede serietegnere på
det svenske Fantomet- serieblad.

Valvé huskes på PIB for en stilfærdig reprimande i
forbindelse med hans arbejde på Eddie, hvor han tit
skulle tegne en revolver og derfor havde en liggende.
Han blev en dag høfligt, men bestemt anmodet om
“ikke at fægte med skydevåben i arbejdstiden, da det
foruroligede damerne.”

I slutningen af 60’erne forsøgte Sonnergaard sig
med en ny spændingsserie, Carolina Yes, der kørte i
nogle år. Figurerne fra Carolina Yes skulle senere
dukke op igen, da Per Sanderhage i 1992 startede
serien Bravo Tango.

Mindre voldsom, men meget populær var panel-
serien Naboens Helle, der begyndte i 1958. Den var
tegnet af kunstmaleren Orla Gettermann, der i lighed
med Helge Hall hørte til gruppen af vittighedstegnere
som havde været i gang siden 1930'erne. Getter-
manns meget præcise og detaljefyldte tegninger
passede glimrende til tiden, og den meget aktive ti-
årige hovedperson, der var inspireret af Gettermanns
nabodatter, fik stor udbredelse, ikke mindst i
udlandet. Den flittige Gettermann tegnede også i
mange år Televits og bidrog til PIBs abonnements-

likeness as the model for the main character in a
European comic strip titled Eddie. According to
surviving witnesses, the meeting took place in a bar,
lasted quite a long time, and Constantine demanded,
naturally enough, suitable payment for his permission
— a bottle of good whiskey.

Eddie became an immediate success and was sold to
almost 60 newspapers. Sonnergaard wrote the strip’s
stories, and in so doing inaugurated a tradition by
which PIB’s current editor also worked as a writer.

Just as quickly as Eddie caught on, the adventure
came to an abrupt end when the English comic strip
version of the James Bond books came on the market.

Jaime Valvé, to everyone’s amazement, suddenly
turned up in Copenhagen because he had gotten the
idea that drawing the strip was a steady job rather
than a freelance assignment. He settled down in
Denmark and actually got a staff job at PIB, where in
addition to Eddie, he also draw several comic strip
adaptations of classic novels, and illustrated
crossword puzzles. Later, Valvé became one of the
most often-used artists on the Swedish Phantom
comic book.

Valvé is remembered at PIB for a gentie reprimand
he got in connection with his work on Eddie. Since he
often had to draw a revolver in the strip, he kept one
around for reference. One day, he received a polite,
but firm request that he “not play with firearms during
working hours, since it upsets the ladies.”

Towards the end of the ’60s, Sonnergaard
experimented with a new suspense strip, Carolina Yes,
which ran for several years. The characters from
Carolina Yes later returned when Per Sanderhage
started the strip, Bravo Tango.

Less violent, but very popular, was the gag panel,
Naboens Tielle [Rita], which began in 1958. It was
drawn by a fine-art painter named Orla Gettermann,
who just like Helge Hall belonged to the generation of

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

service for vittighedstegninger.

Under et besøg i New York i 1963 blev kontakten til
UFS genoptaget og PIB fik en aftale om at fungere
som underagent for UFS’ skandinaviske agent U.P.I. i
Stockholm.

Dette betød at Radiserne, der i de år var ved at
udvikle sig til en institution, kom til PIB. Radiserne er
en af verdens bedste serier overhovedet, og chancen
for at kunne repræsentere den blev grebet med
kyshånd.

En serie af en helt anden type var langsomt ved at få
fodfæste i Danmark. Det drejede sig om Tintin af
George “Hergé” Rémi. Hjalmar Carlsen var i
slutningen af 40’erne blevet opmærksom på serien og
havde anbefalet den til Per Carlsen.

Den belgiske og franske tegneserietradition var
ukendt i Danmark, og da forlaget i 1960 begyndte at
udsende Tintin-album var det absolut ingen succes.
Serien var entusiastisk oversat af Sonnergaard, og der
blev ikke sparet på salgsindsatsen, men der skulle gå

gag cartoonists who had been at it since the 1930s.
Gettermann’s very precise and detailed drawings fit
perfectly with the times, and his strips about a very
active ten-year-old main character, who was inspired
by his neighbors’ daughter, were widely distributed,
especially in foreign countries. The productive
Gettermann also drew Televits [TV Gags] for many
years, and contributed to PIB’s gag cartoons
subscription service.

PIB’s relationship with UFS was re-established in
1963 during a visit to New York, and the company got
an agreement to act as a sub-agent for UFS’
Scandinavian agent, U.RI. in Stockholm.

This meant that Peanuts, which in those years was
developing into an institution, came to PIB. Peanuts is
one of the world’s all-time hest strips, and the chance
to be an agent for it was jumped on eagerly.

A completely different kind of comic was slowly
starting to establish itself in Denmark — Tintin by
Georges “Hergé” Remi. Hjalmar Carlsen had become
aware of the Tintin album series in the late 1940s, and
had recommended it to Per Carlsen.

The Belgian and French comics tradition was
unknown in Denmark then, and when the publisher
started to issue Tintin albums in 1960, they were
absolutely not a success. The stories were
enthusiastically translated by Sonnergaard, and the
company didn't skimp on the promotion budget, but
seven years had to pass before the albums started to
make a profit.

It helped somewhat, though, when Politiken started
to serialize Tintin, and thereby gave PIB its first
experience with selling album comics to the
newspapers.

Tintin later became big business for PIB, which also
sold merchandising rights to Scandinavian
companies. Hergé visited Denmark several times, and
when the albums had become a success, Per Carlsen

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

syv år før den begyndte at give overskud.

Det hjalp dog noget, da Politiken begyndte at bringe
den, og PIB fik her den første erfaring i at sælge
albumserier til aviser.

Tintin blev senere en stor forretning for PIB, der
også solgte merchandising-rettigheder til skandina-
viske firmaer. Hergé besøgte flere gange Danmark, og
da serien var blevet en succes, bad Per Carlsen
Sonnergaard om at finde en god gave til gæsten.
Sonnergaard fandt en perfekt model af “Enhjør-
ningen”, det danske skib som Jens Munk i 1619 havde
brugt i sit forsøg på at finde Nordvestpassagen.

Da skibet havde samme navn som skibet i en af
Hergés mest elskede historier (der blev bragt i
albummene “Enhjørningens hemmelighed” og
“Rackham den Rødes skat”) og tilmed lignede tegne-
serieskibet en del, var Hergé begejstret. Per Carlsen
var knapt så begejstret, da han hørte, at den antikke
model havde kostet over 20.000 kroner.

asked

Sonnergaard to
find a good
present for his
guest. Sonner-
gaard found a
perfect model of
“The Unicom”,
the Danish ship
that Jens Munk
had used in 1619
in his attempt to find the Northwest Passage.

Since the ship had the same name as the ship in one
of Hergé’s most beloved stories (which was published
in two albums, “The Secret of the Unicom” and “Red
Rackham’s Treasure”), and actually looked a lot like
the comics ship in the bargain, Hergé was thrilled. Per
Carlsen wasn’t quite so thrilled when he heard that the
antique model had cost more than 20,000 crowns.

Naboens Helle (Rita)

EN IKKE-CARLSEN I D I REKT 0 RSTO LEN

Der var nu forlag i både Danmark, Sverige og
Tyskland, og de tog mere og mere af Per Carlsens tid.
Han begyndte derfor at se sig om efter en direktør,
der kunne koncentrere sig om PIB.

I forlagskredse snakkede man om at direktøren for
Grafisk Forlag ikke var ubetinget tilfreds med sin
stilling, og i 1964 blev Philipp Plon så headhuntet til
PIBs direktørstol.

Plon, der havde måttet forlade Østrig i 1938, havde
fundet sig til rette i Danmark, men den tyske besæt-
telse i 1940 ændrede igen hans situation.

Den nazistiske jagt på de danske jøder begyndte
først i efteråret 1943, men de bitre erfaringer fra
Østrig gjorde, at Plon tidligere og klarere end de fleste

A NON-CARLSEN IN THE DIRECTOR’S
CHAIR

There were now publishing companies in Denmark,
Sweden, and Germany, and running them took up
more and more of Per Carlsen’s time. He therefore
began to look around for a managing director who
could concentrate on PIB.

Talk went around in publishing circles that the
director of Grafisk Forlag wasn’t unconditionally
satisfied with his job, so in 1964, Philipp Plon was
headhunted to sit in PIB’s director’s chair.

Plon, who had to flee Austria in 1938, had settled
down in Denmark, but the German occupation in
1940 changed his situation again.

The Nazi hunt for the Danish Jews didn’t start until
Autumn, 1943, but his bitter experiences in Austria

49

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

så, hvilken fare folk af jødisk afstamning svævede i.

Da den danske regering i august 1943 trådte tilbage,
så han skriften på væggen og gik under jorden. Plon
undslap til Sverige under dramatiske omstændig-
heder, hvor han måtte svømme en del af vejen. To
måneder senere måtte 7.000 danske jøder, hjulpet af
private borgere og modstandsbevægelsen, følge efter
for at undgå at blive sendt til de tyske koncentrations-
lejre.

I en række udsendelser i Danmarks radio har Plon
beskrevet denne del af sit liv.

Efter krigen arbejdede Plon en periode for den
amerikanske hær i Tyskland, men vendte tilbage til
Danmark og kom ind i forlagsbranchen via
ffirschsprungs Forlag.

Som alle direktører i den “blandede landhandel”,
som PIBs ekspeditionschef fra 1920 til 1959, Frio
Schwaner, altid betegnede firmaet, fungerede Plon
både som administrator og sælger.

I hans tid blev sortimentet af serier udvidet
betydeligt, især med amerikanske serier.

Hvad de færreste umiddelbart bemærkede var, at
der med Plon også skete en tiltrængt fornyelse af
firmaet. Det er ikke nødvendigvis en god ting, at den
daglige ledelse af et firma kun består af personer fra
samme familie, og Plon sørgede stilfærdigt, men
sikkert for, at der kom en distance mellem personalet
og den øverste ledelse.

Selv om Plon og Per Carlsen gennem alle årene
havde et tæt samarbejde og blev personlige venner,
og selv om der også ledelsesmæssigt var mange
sammenfald og dertil hørende kompetancestridig-
heder mellem de tre forskellige virksomheder,
ændrede PIB sig langsomt til et mere selvstændigt
firma.

Sammen med Sonnergaard, der nu var blevet
chefredaktør, tog han i 1967 til USA, hvor Sonner-
gaard havde skaffet en række nye kontakter. På et

meant that Plon saw, earlier and more clearly than
most, what danger people of Jewish ancestry floated
in. When the Danish government resigned in August
1943, Plon saw the handwriting on the wall and went
underground. He escaped to Sweden under dramatic
circumstances, during which he was forced to swim
part of the way. Two months later, by far the greatest
part of the 7,000 Danish Jews had to follow after him

— helped by private citizens and the Resistance — in
order to escape being sent to the German
concentration camps.

Plon has since described that part of his life in a
series of broadcasts on Danmarks Radio.

After the war, Plon worked for a time for the
American army in Germany, but returned to Denmark
and entered the publishing business via
Hirscshsprungs Forlag.

Just like all directors in “the general store business”

— as Frio Schwaner, PIB’s shipping chief from 1920 to
1959, always called the company — Plon acted as
both an administrator and as a salesman.

During his time, the assortment of comic strips
offered was considerably expanded, especially with
American strips.

What not many immediately noticed was that under
Plon, a badly needed renewal of the company took
place. It’s not necessarily a good thing that the daily
management of a company is made up only of
members of the same family, and Plon reorganized it
so that, slowly but surely, some distance was opened
up between the staff and the top management.

Even though Plon and Per Carlsen had a close
working relationship throughout the years and
became personal friends, and even though on the
management side there were many overlapping
functions at the three different companies (and the
territorial disputes that went with them), PIB was
slowly changed into a more independent company.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

enkelt år fik de en udvidet underagentaftale med UFS
og fik også aftaler med andre bureauer, såsom
Chicago Tribune Media Service, Masters Agency,
Post/Dispatch Features og Fields Syndicate. Det betød
at serier som Legionen, Vores Frøken, Dick Tracy, Rick
O’Shay og Vor Mor kom til PIB.

En yderst veltegnet daglig panelserie, Belvedere, af
George Crenshaw blev meget populær i Skandinavien
og Tyskland. Seriens hovedperson, en hund med
stærkt nihilistiske tendenser, fandt en stor og entusia-
stisk læserskare blandt den samme type læsere, der
senere skulle begejstres over Garfield.

Trods de mange amerikanske serier holdt man ikke
op med at se sig omkring efter lokale talenter. Den
svenske musiker og illustrator Jan Loof startede på
opfordring fra PIB serien Felix i 1967. Tegnet i bevidst
naivistisk stil og med et moderat venstreorienteret
indhold passede serien perfekt til tidsånden og fik en
stor udbredelse.

Jan Loof forlod serien i 1972. Herefter kom en lang
række danske tegnere og forfattere til at prøve kræfter
med Felix.

I de første år blev den tegnet af Werner “WOW”
Wejp-Olsen, der i nogle år arbejdede på PIB. Den
flittige WOW fik senere succes med en lang række

Together with Sonner-
gaard, who was now Editor-
in-Chief, Plon traveled in
1967 to the States, where
Sonnergaard had made a
series of new contacts. In
the course of one year, they
got an expanded sub-agent
agreement with UFS, and
also made deals with other
bureaus, such as the
Chicago Tribune Media Service, Master’s Agency,
Post/Dispatch Features, and the Field Syndicate. That
meant that such strips as Crock, Miss Peach, Dick
Tracy, Rick O’Shay, and Momma came to PIB.

An extremely well-drawn daily gag panel, Belvedere
by George Crenshaw, became very popular in
Scandinavia and Germany. The strip’s main character,
a dog with strong nihilistic tendencies, found a large
and enthusiastic readership among the same type of
readers who would later be delighted over Garfield.

Despite the large number of American strips, no one
stopped looking around for local talent. On the
encouragement of PIB, the Swedish musician and
illustrator Jan Loof started up in 1967 Felix. Drawn in
a consciously naive style, and with a slightly leftist
content, the strip fit perfectly into the spirit of the
times and achieved wide distribution.

Jan Loof left Felix in 1972. Afterwards, a long line of
Danish cartoonists and writers tested their abilities on
the strip.

In the first few years, it was drawn by Werner “WOW”
Wejp-Olsen, who had worked for PIB for several years.
The productive WOW later achieved success with a
long string of strips, of which Momsemor [Granny] is
the hest known.

After WOW, Felix was taken over by such different
Danish creators as Jens Peder Agger, Ole Munk

Belvedere

51

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Livets gang i Lidenlund (Life in Littleburg)

serier, hvoraf vel nok Momsemor er den kendteste.

Efter WOW blev Felix overtaget af så forskellige
danske serieskabere som Jens Peder Agger, Ole Munk
Rasmussen, Per Sanderhage, Per Vadmand og Morten
“Mårdøn Smet” Schmidt.

“Veteranerne” var dog i høj grad med til at præge
PIBs serieudvalg. Cosperier og Alfredo havde mange
kunder. Hans og Grete og Poeten og Lillemor kæmpede
på hver deres vis om at være mest “dansk”, men fik
pludselig alvorlig konkurrence fra endnu en bidrag-
yder fra de tidlige Hudibras-dage. Henning Gantriis
havde siden 1953 tegnet den ugentlige serie Livets
gang i Lidenlund til Politiken, men i 1971 påbegyndte
han en dagstribeudgave, der fik stor udbredelse.

Henning Gantriis var avisseriernes Gustav Wied.
Livets gang i Lidenlund er unik i sin beskrivelse af det
provinsielle Danmark. Med Lemvig som forlæg
beskrev Gantriis en provinsbys mindst tiltalende
sider: dobbeltmoral, snæversyn, korruption, sladder
og nepotisme. Alligevel er serien elsket. Som Anders
Hjorth-Jørgensen skrev i sin bog De Danske Tegnese-
riers Historie: det er vel også de færreste, som hader
deres eget spejlbillede.

Lemvig har i hvert fald totalt tilgivet deres bidske

Rasmussen, Per Sanderhage, Per Vadmand, or Morten
“Mørdon Smet” Schmidt.

“Veterans,” though, still had a large presence in
PIB’s comic strip catalogue. Cosperier and Alfredo had
many clients. Hans og Grete and Poeten og Lillemor
fought in their own way over being regarded as the
most “Danish”, but serious competition for the title
suddenly appeared from yet another contributor from
the early days of Hudibras. Henning Gantriis had
since 1953 drawn the weekly strip Livets Gang i
Lidenlund [Life in Littleburg] for Politiken, but in
1971 he started a daily strip version, which was
widely distributed.

Henning Gantriis was the newspaper comic strip’s
Gustav Wied. Life in Littleburg is unique for its
description of provincial Denmark. With the town of
Lemvig serving as his inspiration, Gantriis described a
provincial town’s less attractive sides: double morality,
narrow-mindedness, corruption, gossip, and
nepotism. Nevertheless, the strip is loved there. As
Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen wrote in his book The
History of Danish Comic Strips, “after all, few people
hates their own relefctions. “

At any rate, Lemvig has completely forgiven its

52

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

søn. Da Gantriis døde i 1989, åbnede Lemvigs
museum en mindestue for ham.

NÆSTE GENERATION RYKKER IND

PIBs kunder er avisredaktører, snarere end avislæsere.
Det er derfor naturligt nok, at ingen rigtigt havde
bemærket, at der var sket et afgørende skred i unge
danskeres holdning til serier.

En ny generation var vokset op med tegneserier som
en naturlig del af hverdagen. Selv om Skipper Skræk-
bladet var startet allerede i 1938, var det med Anders
And & Co. fra 1949, at tegneserier for alvor blev
tilgængelige for børnene.

Amerikanske superhelteserier og engelske kærlig-
hedsserier blev et meget kærkomment alternativ for
børn og unge til den enlige folkeopdragende statslige
TV-kanal. De fransk-belgiske albumserier fra Illustra-
tionsforlaget og Egmont øgede samtidigt interessen
for mediet i takt med at efterkrigsgenerationen
voksede op.

Da Egmont i 1966 begyndte at udsende det
ugentlige Fart og Tempo-blad med den formidable
Per Då som redaktør, fik serieinteresserede unge
adgang til et stort udbud af europæiske serier.

I begyndelsen af 70’erne var de billige serieblade
det helt store. Gysere og superhelte var sagen,
ansvarlige voksne var ved at kvæles af bekymring for
de unges udvikling, og et selvmorderisk slagsmål
brød ud mellem det danske forlag Interpresse og det
internationale forlag Williams Forlag. Kampen blev
ført ved at begge parter udsendte en usandsynlig
mængde af titler i håbet om at vinde markedsandele.
Kioskerne druknede i serieblade og enden på det
hele blev, at et næsten udslettet Williams blev opkøbt
af den svenske Bonnier-koncern, som samtidigt
købte sig ind i et hårdt presset Interpresse og slog de
to forlag sammen.

caustic son. When Gantriis died in 1989, the town’s
museum opened a memorial room for him.

THE N EXT GENERATION MOVES IN

PIB’s clients are newspaper editors rather than
newspaper readers. It’s therefore understandable
enough that no one had really noticed that there had
been a decisive step taken in young Danes’
relationship to comic strips.

A new generation had grown up with comics as an
everyday part of their lives. Even though the Skipper
Skræk [Popeye] comic book was launched already
back in 1938, it was first with Anders And & Co.

[Donald Duck & Co.] from 1949 that comics became
widely available to children.

American superhero comics and English love comics
became a much appreciated-by-children alternative to
the single, citizen-educating state-owned TV channel.
At the same time, the French-Belgian comic albums
from Illustrationsforlaget and Egmont increased
interest in the medium in pace with the maturing of
the post-war generation.

When in 1966, Egmont started to publish the weekly
Fart og Tempo [Speed and Tempo] comic book, with
the formidable Per Då as editor, comics-interested
“youth” got access to a large selection of European
comics.

At the start of the 1970s, cheap comic books were the
craze. Horror and superheroes were in, responsible
adults were close to fainting from worry over the
development of the young, and a suicidal war broke
out between the Danish publisher Interpresse and the
international publisher Williams. The batties were
waged by both parties publishing an impossible
number of titles in the hope of winning increased
market share. The kiosks were drowning in comic
books, and the final outcome was that the almost-

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Det medførte dog ikke svigtende interesse for
mediet som sådan. I 1971 åbnede to unge studerende
Danmarks første tegneserieforretning, Fantask, med
speciale i udenlandske serier. Fantask blev et center
for serieinteresserede fra hele Skandinavien og et
vigtigt samlingssted for en hel generation af tegnere
og forfattere.

En vigtig begivenhed for den danske tegneserie-
branche var en stor udstilling i Huset i Magstræde i
1974, hvor den spirende fanbevægelse for første gang
fik mulighed for at møde hinanden.

En lang række tegnere og redaktører, som senere
skulle gøre sig gældende i branchen, mødtes her
første gang.

Blandt de mange, der i forbindelse med slagsmålet
mellem Interpresse og Williams måtte skifte arbejde,
var Paul Schiøtt fra Williams og Per Sanderhage fra
Interpresse.

Schiøtt kom til PIB som chefredaktør i 1976, da
Sonnergaard gik til Egmont-forlaget og en senere
karriere som forfatter. Schiøtts speciale var humor-
serier. Han forventede, at læserne havde et stort set
ubegrænset ordforråd og hans oversættelser kom på
det nærmeste til at danne skole for andre over-
sættere.

Desuden havde han et fast princip om, at der ikke
fandtes et begreb som uoversættelige tegneserie-
striber, kun udfordringer. Denne holdning resul-
terede blandt andet i, at hvad man ellers betragtede
som uoversættelige serier blev populære i Skandi-
navien. Det gælder blandt andet den forrygende
avisstribe, Frank og Fredrik, hvor oversætterne til de
andre nordiske sprog benyttede Schiøtts oversæt-
telser snarere end den engelsksprogede original-
version.

Helt klar over, at seriemarkedet var ved at ændre sig,
ansatte han i 1980 sin gamle konkurrent Sanderhage,
der som oversætter, forfatter og tegner hurtigt blev

wiped-out Williams was bought by the Swedish
Bonnier Corporation, which at the same time took
over the hard-pressed Interpresse and merged the two
companies.

That didn’t lead, though, to declining interest in the
medium as such. In 1971, two young students opened
Denmark’s first comic book shop, Fantask, which
specialized in foreign comic hooks. Fantask became a
center for those interested in comics from the whole
of Scandinavia, and an important gathering place for
an entire generation of comics artists and writers.

An important event for the Danish comics industry
was a large exhibition held in Huset on Magstræde in
1974, at which members of the budding comic-fan-
movement got its first opportunity to rneet each other.

A long list of cartoonists and editors, who later made
an impact in the industry, also met here for the first
time.

Among the many who in connection with the war
between Interpresse and Williams, were forced to
change jobs, were Paul Schiøtt from Williams and Per
Sanderhage from Interpresse.

Schiøtt joined PIB as the Editor-in-Chief in 1976,
when Sonnergaard moved on to Egmont and a later
career as a writer. Schiøtt’s speciality was humor
strips. He expected that the readers had a largely
unlimited vocabulary, and his translations served
almost as a training ground for other translators.

In addition, he had a firm principle that there was
no such thing as untranslatable comic strips, only
challenges. This attitude resulted in, among other
things, that comic strips that had otherwise been
regarded as untranslatable became popular in
Scandinavia. That was true of, among others, the
remarkable newspaper strip Frank and Ernest, for
which translators to the other Nordic languages based
their versions on Schiøtt’s Danish translation instead
of the English original.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Multitalentet Gil Johansens venlige streg er kendt
over hele Norden fra utallige illustrationer og serier.

Her en scene fra Gogo.

The multi- talentet Gil Johansen’s friendly style is
known all over Scandinavia from countless illustra-
tions and strips. Here a scene from Gogo.

PIBs kreative altmuligmand.

En af Schiøtts første handlinger var at forny børne-
stoffet, ved at få Eigil “Gil” Johansen til at arbejde for
PIB. Gil havde i årevis tegnet børneserier, illustreret
ugeblade og havde faktisk siden 1950’erne uden held
forsøgt at sælge vittighedstegninger til PIB.

Men nu gik det for alvor løs med en stærkt tiltrængt
vitaminindsprøjtning til PIBs skrantende feature
Børnenes Rubrik, opgaver for både børn og voksne,
julestof og tegneserien Gogo.

Giis speciale er aktiviteter for både børn og unge, og
en mindeværdig solrig eftermiddag fik han overbevist
Schiøtt og Sanderhage om at man kunne lave en lille
drage til forsendelse til aviserne.

Det måtte komme an på en prøve, og café-gæster og
forbipasserende kunne så samme dag med nogen
forbløffelse se tre voksne mænd med fuldskæg og

Totally aware that the comics market was about to
change, Schiøtt hired in 1980 his old competitor, Per
Sanderhage, who working as translator, writer, and
cartoonist quickly became PIB’s Creative odd-job man.

One of Schiøtt’s first actions was revamping the
children’s features by hiring Eigil “Gil” Johansen to
work for PIB. Gil had for years drawn children’s comics
and illustrated weekly magazines, and had actually
since the 1950s tried in vain to seil gag cartoons to
PIB.

But now he was finally put furiously to work on a
much-needed vitamin shot to PIB’s declining feature,
Børnenes Rubrik [The Children’s Section] , activities for
children and adults, Christmas features, and the
comic strip GOGO.

Gil specialized in activities for children and adults,
and one memorable sunny afternoon, he convinced
Schiøtt and Sanderhage that it was possible to make a
little kite that could be distributed to the newspapers.

That theory had to be proven, and the same day, café
guests and passers-by could watch in amazement as
three grown men with full beards and ties
unsuccessfully attempted to get a kite up into the air

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

slips uden held forsøge at sætte en drage op midt på
Kultorvet. I flere år efter måtte Schiøtt og Sanderhage
døje med nabofirmaernes ironiske forespørgelser om,
hvordan det gik i “drage-branchen”.

ADSKILLELSEN

1970’erne bragte ny teknik til aviserne, og klicheernes
tid var ved at være forbi. I 1974 opgav PIB sin foto-
service, og det blev efterhånden klart, at en enkelt
reprofotograf med det rette udstyr kunne klare alt det
tekniske arbejde med tegneserier og de resterende
features.

Det tætte forhold til CC&Os tekniske afdeling var
derfor ikke længere nødvendigt.

I 1980 besluttede Carlsen-familien at nedlægge
“trillinge-firmaet”. Forlagene og bygningen i Købma-
gergade 9 blev solgt til Bonnier-koncernen. CC&O
blev selvstændigt og PIB omdannet til et kommandit-
selskab hvor 20% af andelene blev solgt til medarbej-
derne.

PIB beholdt sine kontorer endnu i to år i Købma-
gergade, men flyttede nogle hundrede meter op på
Kultorvet 11.

Afdelingerne for korrespondance, økonomi og
forsendelse havde serviceret alle tre firmaer og ligget
på forskellige etager i Købmagergade. Adskillelsen af
de tre firmaer betød derfor, at mange måtte sige
farvel til mange kolleger. Desuden var det en kraftig
omvæltning for næsten alle, pludselig at dele lokaler
med kolleger man ikke tidligere havde haft ret meget
kontakt til.

PIB kunne beholde sit gamle postboksnummer, Box
6, som man havde haft i over 60 år, men der skulle
nye telefonnumre til. Et af dem lå tilsyneladende
meget tæt på telefonnummeret til et bordel, hvilket
gav anledning til spørgsmål af ret avanceret art. PIBs
trofaste telefondame gennem mange år, Vibeke Due-

in the middle of Kultorvet. For several years after,
Schiøtt and Sanderhage had to put up with the
neighboring companies’ ironic inquiries into how it
was going in the “go-fly-a-kite business.”

SEPARATION

The 1970s brought new technology to the
newspapers and the age of engraved printing plates
was over. In 1974, PIB gave up its photo service, and it
eventually became obvious that a single repro
photographer with the right equipment could handle
all the technical work needed on the comic strips and
remaining features.

A close working relationship to CC&O’s technical
department was no longer necessary.

In 1980, the Carlsen family decided to close down
the “triplet company”. The publishing company and
the headquarters building at Købmagergade 9 were
sold to the Bonnier Corporation. CC&O became
independent, and PIB was re-organized as a limited
partnership in which 20% of the shares were sold to
the employees.

PIB kept its offices in Købmagergade for another two
years, but eventually moved several hundred meters
up the Street to Kultorvet 11.

The correspondence, finance, and shipping
departments had serviced all three companies and
were located on different floors in Købmagergade.
Therefore, separation of the three companies meant
that many employees were forced to say goodbye to
some of their colleagues. In addition, it was a major
upheaval for almost everyone to suddenly find
themselves working in the same offices with people
they hadn’t previously had much contact with.

PIB was able to keep its old post office box number,
Box 6, which it had had for over 60 years, but new
telephone numbers were necessary. One of them was

56

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Hansen, sorterede myndigt disse fra, men glemte at
orientere PIBs engelske og meget britiske korres-
pondent Mary Stundsig-Larsen om dette, da hun en
dag skulle afløse hende. En hæs mandsstemme, der
spurgte efter “tysk”, fik den høflige besked: “No, I am
British!” mens to andre forespørgelser om “svensk”
blev stillet om til PIBs to svenske oversættere og
skrivedamer.

Tiden på Kultorvet var på mange måder med til at
gøre PIB til et mere målrettet firma. En stadig større
andel af firmaets omsætning kom fra serier, og der
var også sket en holdningsændring til mediet internt.
Schiøtt og Sanderhage var de første på PIB, der havde
været ansat i tegneseriebranchen før ansættelsen, og
deres udgangspunkt var naturligt nok anderledes end
tidligere redaktørers.

Så da der opstod et boom i salg af både danske og
udenlandske album, var PIB parat til at tage teten.

very close to the telephone number of
a bordello, which gave rise to
inquiries of a rather advanced nature.
PIB’s faithful telephone operator for
many years, Vibeke Due-Hansen,
maturely screened these out, but
forgot to inform PIB’s English, and
very British, correspondent, Mary
Stundsig-Larsen, about the situation,
when the latter relieved her one day. A
hoarse male voice, who asked about
“German”, (code for S/M), received the polite reply,
“No, I am British!”, while two other enquiries into
“Swedish” were transferred to PIB’s two Swedish
translators and typists.

The time on Kultorvet was, in many ways, partly
responsible for turning PIB into a more focused
company. An increasingly growing share of the
company’s gross sales came from comics, and an
internal shift in PIB’s opinion of the medium had also
occurred. Schiøtt and Sanderhage were the first
employees who had worked in the comics industry
before they were hired at PIB, and their basic opinions
of the medium were naturally enough different than
those of earlier editors.

So when a boom in the sales of both Danish and
foreign albums occurred, PIB was prepared to take the
lead.

Nofret af Sussi Bech. En af
mange albumserier, der
blev solgt til aviser
gennem PIB.

Nofret by Sussi Bech, one
of many album-stories
sold to newspapers by
PIB.

ALBUM^ALBUM OG ATTER ALBUM

Fra et forlagssynspunkt kan det store album-eventyr
sagtens forklares. Siden 1940’erne var der i de fransk-
sprogede lande udgivet en lang række fremragende
tegneserier, og de danske forlag kunne vælge og vrage
mellem de bedste.

Danske tegneserielæsere blev udsat for et regulært

ALBUMS, ALBUMS, AND MORE ALBUMS

From the point of view of a publisher, the great album
adventure can certainly be explained. Ever since the
late 1940s, the French-speaking countries had
published a long list of excellent comic albums, so the
Danish publishers could now pick and chose from the
hest.

57

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

bombardement af de bedste
serier fra over 30 års fransk-
belgisk produktion, redigeret af
folk fra netop den aldersgruppe,
der var vokset op med mediet.

Forlaget Interpresse havde
tiltrukket folk fra fanbevægelsen,
såsom Henning Kure og Carsten
Søndergaard, hvis viden og
kærlighed til mediet resulterede i
en eksplosion af udgivelser.

Da Bonnier-koncernen, der nu
også ejede Interpresse, slog
Forlaget Carlsen og Interpresse
sammen, benyttede tre tidligere
Carlsen-medarbejdere, Jens
Peder Agger, Ole Steen Hansen og
Stina Moquist sig af chancen og
dannede forlaget Bogfabrikken,
der kom til at spille en betydelig
rolle på tegneseriemarkedet.

Indtægterne fra de udenlandske album blev i vid
udstrækning brugt til at finansiere en produktion af
danske tegneserier. Et forbløffende stort antal talenter
var dukket op og fik nu chancen til at vise, hvad de
duede til.

De danske aviser var meget opmærksomme på
udviklingen, ikke mindst, da flere og flere, som var
vokset op med serier, nåede ledende poster.

Ekstra Bladet startede et stort ugentligt tillæg
redigeret af Pedro med albumserier. På B.T. begyndte
Karsten Lindhardt en ihærdig kampagne til fordel for
serier og snart bragte B.T. to sider med albumserier
om dagen. Interessen var så stor, at Lindhardt
sammen med anmelderen Holger Ruppert kunne
oprette en daglig tegneserieanmeldelse i avisen.

Fyens Stiftstidende, Århus Stiftstidende og Aalborg
Stiftstidende begyndte også at bringe albumserier.

Danish comics readers were
besieged with a regular
bombardment of the best comics
from over 30 years of French-
Belgian production, edited by
people from precisely the age
group that had grown up with the
medium.

When Bonnier, who now also
owned Interpresse, merged
Forlaget Carlsen and Interpresse,
three former employees — Jens
Peder Agger, Ole Steen Hansen,
and Stine Moquist — took
advantage of their situation and
established their own publishing
company, Bogfabrikken [The
Book Factory], which came to
play an influential role in the
comics market.

The income from foreign- album
sales was for the most part used to finance a
production of Danish comics. Remarkable large
number of talents had turned up and now got the
chance to show what they could do.

The Danish newspapers were very aware of this
development, not the least because a growing number
staff members who had grown up with comics had
also been promoted to management positions.

Ekstra Bladet launched a large, weekly supplement
edited by Pedro and composed of album pages. At
B.T., Karsten Lindhardt began a persistent campaign
in favor of comics, and soon B. T. was publishing two
pages of album comics per day. The interest was so
great that Lindhardt, together with reviewer Holger
Ruppert, was able to set up a daily comics review in
the newspaper.

Fyens Stiftstidende, Århus Stiftstidende, and Aalborg

Peter Heydenreich var PIBs satiretegner i over ti år,
og tegnede også flere serier for PIB. Heriblandt
“Panik” skrevet af Morten Hesseldahl og et års
produktion af Per Sanderhages dagsstribe “Colt”.

Peter Heydenreich worked for a decade as PIB’s
editorial cartoonist. He was also the artist of several
comics produced by PIB, such as “Panic” written by
Morten Hesseldahl and a one year run of Per
Sanderhage’s daily strip “Colt”.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Information blev ikke overraskende avisen, der
bragte de mest komplicerede serier med en side om
dagen.

Flere dagblade fulgte trop, og det udviklede sig til et
større puslespil med at skaffe rettigheder, trykfilm,
oversættelser, tekstning og hvad der ellers hører sig til.

Netop den slags er PIBs speciale. PIB sikrede sig
hurtigt salgsrettigheder fra både danske og
udenlandske forlag, såsom Dupuis, Casterman,
Dargaud og Lombard. Selv amerikanske serieforlag
som D.C. og Marvel var i en periode repræsenteret via
PIB. Desuden forsøgte PIB sig også med held som
producent af egne albumserier. Langt hovedparten af
albumserier til aviser og ugeblade kom til at gå
gennem PIB.

Lige let var det ikke altid at få puslespillet mellem de
mange rettighedshavere, kunder og de tekniske
aspekter til at gå op, og mange serieredaktører vil
nikke genkendende til Schiøtts bemærkning om, at
“tegneserier er ikke en branche! Det er en sammen-
sværgelse!”.

DET VAR KATTENS!

Af og til kan en tegneserie pludselig opnå status som
et kulturfænomen. Der kræver nogle sammenfald af
omstændigheder, men når det sker kan det gå hurtigt.

I det omfang man overhovedet kan tale om regler
for den slags, står det fast, at serien helt grund-
læggende skal have en original grundidé, genken-
delige figurer i en personlig streg, at den skal kunne
fange tidsånden og... i de fleste tilfælde... at den
gennem produkter baseret på seriens figurer skal nå
ud til et publikum, der ikke nødvendigvis læser tegne-
serier til hverdag.

Stiftstidende also started to publish album comics.
Information became, not surprisingly, the newspaper
that published the most complicated comics, on one
page a day.

Several daily newspapers followed their lead and the
procurement of rights, printing film, translations,
lettering, and anything else involved developed into a
huge puzzle.

Precisely those kind of things are PIB's specialty. The
company quickly secured sales rights from both Danish
and foreign publishers, such as Dupuis, Casterman,
Dargaud, and Lombard. Even American comic book
publishers such as D.C. and Marvel were for a time
represented by PIB. In addition, PIB successfully tried
its hånd at producing its own album comics. By far the
largest portion of album comics for newspapers and
weekly magazines ended up passing through PIB.

It wasrit always equally easy to get the pieces of the
puzzle involving the many copyright holders, clients,
and technical specifications to fit together, and many
a comics editor will nod his head knowingly at a Paul
Schiøtt remark that “comics are not a business!

They’re a conspiracy!”

LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN!

Every once in a while, a comic strip can suddenly
achieve status as a cultural phenomenon. It requires a
several combinations of circumstances, but when it
happens, it happens fast.

To the extent that it’s possible to talk at all about
rules for that sort of thing, it’s chiseled in stone that
the strip has to have an original basic idea,
recognizable characters revealed in a personal style,
be able to capture the spirit of the times, and — in
most cases — that it, through merchandising based
on the strip’s main characters, is able to reach an

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

■p-Tie.-

uO-otoMA. ovu

(M)

Ouuk

jfc

Jubilæumshilsen fra Jim Davis
Anniversary greetingfrom Jim Davis

Dette skete med Radiserne i 1960’erne. Selv om
Charles Schulz havde tegnet serien fra 1950, og den
blev bragt i et utal af dagblade i hele verden, blev den
først et internationalt fænomen da der pludselig
dukkede billeder af Nuser op alle vegne. Det gav en
selvforstærkende effekt, og tegnefilm og endnu flere
merchandising- og licensing-produkter blev en del af
billedet af 60’erne.

I 1978 begyndte Jim Davis på sin serie Garfield. Paul
Schiøtt blev straks fascineret af humoren, og i 1980
kom det første salg i Skandinavien, og så gik det
hurtigt. På et års tid lykkedes det ham og Plon at
sælge serien til 89 aviser og ugeblade i Skandinavien,
der dermed blev det område uden for USA , hvor
salget gik hurtigst. I modsætning til de fleste nyere
avisserier tiltalte Garfield også i høj grad unge læsere,
og der kom meget hurtigt album med Garfield- striber
på markedet, som slog alle salgsrekorder.

Succesen medførte også et hav af serier, der forsøgte
at efterligne Davis’ kyniske kat, men ingen havde
samme gennemslagskraft. Først da Steen og Stoffer
dukkede op i 1990’erne, kunne man opleve samme
begejstring hos læserne.

audience that doesrit necessarily read comic strips
every day.

This happened with Peanuts in the 1960s. Even
though Charles Schulz had drawn the strip since 1950
and it was published in a countless number of
newspapers all over the world, it first became a true
international phenomenon when pictures of Snoopy
suddenly popped up everywhere. That had a self-
perpetuating effect and Peanuts animated cartoons
and even more merchandise and licensed products
became a part of the image of the ’60s.

In 1978, Jim Davis started his strip, Garfield. Paul
Schiøtt was immediately fascinated by the humor, in
1980 the strip made it’s first sale in Scandinavia, and
then it took off. In the course of a year, Schiøtt and
Plon succeeded in selling the strip to 89 newspapers
and weekly magazines in Scandinavia, thereby making
it the area outside of the U.S.A. where sales went
fastest. In contrast to most of the newer newspaper
strips, Garfield spoke to a large number of young
readers, and albums collecting Garfield strips very
quickly appeared on the market — albums which
broke all sales records.

That success also led to a flood of strips that tried to
imitate Davis’ cynical cat, but none had the same
break-through power. It wasn’t until Calvin and
Hobbes turned up in the 1990s that it was possible to
experience the same enthusiasm among readers.

Unfortunately, that strip belonged to the
competition, and PIB had to grit its teeth as it
followed Calvin and Hobbes’ road to cult status.

That wasrit anything else to do except wait for times
to change, trust that the need for a new kind of humor
would arise by itself, and hope that someone would be
able to capture it.

It arrived with Scott Adams’ Dilbert. Actually, Dilbert
is a ferocious satire on the modern workplace
environment, but it achieved a cult audience among

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Jubilæumshilsen fra Charles M. Schulz
Anniversary greeting from Charles M. Schulz

Desværre tilhørte lige den serie konkurrenterne, og
på PIB fulgte man tænderskærende, hvordan Steen og
Stoffer fik kultstatus.

Der var ikke andet at gøre end at vente på, at tiden
skiftede... at et behov for en ny slags humor ville
komme af sig selv... og så håbe at NOGEN kunne
fange den.

Den kom med Scott Adams’ Dilbert. Egentlig er
Dilbert en grum satire over moderne virksomheds-
kultur, men den fik et kultpublikum blandt computer-
brugere og fik prædikatet “nørd-serie”.

Efter en langsom start voksede læserskaren, og
pludselig slog serien igennem, og PIB havde igen den
“nye” store serie.

Og selv om Dilbert som alle andre successerier må
takke bureauredaktører for en vis del af populariteten,
er den som Radiserne og Garfield indiskutabelt én
mands værk.

Trods ethvert forsøg på at SKABE en succes må det
erkendes, at det ikke kan lade sig gøre. Ikke nok så

computer users and started being called “the nerd
strip.”

After a slow start, the readership grew, and suddenly
the strip broke through. PIB once again had the “new”
big strip.

And even though Dilbert, like all the other successful
strips, has to thank bureau editors for a certain
amount of its popularity, it is, like Peanuts and
Garfield, one mans work.

Despite every attempt made to construct a success, it
must be admitted that it can’t be done. Not all that
many professional marketing people, persistent
salesmen, experienced writers, or competent artists
can capture just exactly that — the ingredient that
makes the decisive difference between an industrial

flft!

Jubilæumshilsen fra Scott Adams
Anniversary greeting from Scott Adams

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

mange professionelle marketingsfolk, ihærdige
sælgere, erfarne tekstfolk og dygtige tegnere kan fange
lige DET, som gør den altafgørende forskel mellem et
industriprodukt og en serie med en personlighed, der
kan ramme lige det rigtige tidspunkt.

Det ved alle, der beskæftiger sig professionelt med
tegneserier, og næsten alle prøver alligevel.

PIB forsøgte sig med en dagstribeudgave af Quark,
en biperson fra en tegnefilm baseret på den populære
danske albumserie Valhalla. Det gik ikke som håbet. I
første omgang forsøgte man at lægge sig så tæt på
figuren som muligt, senere blev serien overladt til
tegneren Torben Osted, hvis streg og humor gav
serien et stærkt personligt præg.

Det gik alligevel ikke, og til sidst måtte serien
opgives, og Osted startede i stedet dagstriben Skæve
Vinkler, hvor han fik flere muligheder for at bruge sit
satiriske talent.

1980’ernes indiskutabelt største danske avissucces
var den bidske politiske satireserie Statsministeren. I
1982 henvendte Carsten Graabæk sig til PIB med en
forsat satirisk serie. Den slags var usælgelige, men
talentet var åbenlyst, og Graabæk blev opfordret til at
lave serien om til en afsluttet dagstribe.

Resultatet overgik enhver forventning og serien blev
den mest solgte danske avisserie siden Alfredo og
Naboens Helle.

Trods de mange danske tiltag var den for PIB nok
vigtigste begivenhed dog at få salgsrettighederne fra
UFS og NEA. De to amerikanske syndikater blev
samlet under navnet United Media, som i 1985
overlod PIB rettighederne til at sælge deres serier i
Skandinavien og de tysksprogede områder i Europa.
Tidligere havde PIB fungeret som underagent for et
andet firma eller havde fået salgsrettighederne
gennem særaftaler, men med en hovedaftale i
lommen kunne man ånde lettet op.

Bureauer og serier handles som alt andet, og både

product and a conric strip with personality that’s able
to hit at just the right time.

This is known by everyone who works professionally
in the comics industry, but nearly everyone tries
anyway.

PIB tried with a daily strip version of Quark, a
supporting character from an animated cartoon based
on the popular Danish album series, Valhalla. It didn’t
go as hoped. In the first go-round, the attempt was
made to stay as close to the character as possible. Later,
the strip was left to cartoonist Torben Osted, whose
style and humor gave it a strong personal stamp.

It didn't work anyway, and finally the strip had to be
abandoned. Instead, Osted started the daily strip
Skæve Vinkler [Skewed Angles], with which he got the
opportunity to use his satirical talent.

The 1980s inarguably greatest Danish newspaper
success was the biting political satire strip,
Statsministeren [Prime Minister]. In 1982, Carsten
Graabæk came to PIB with a continued satirical strip.
That kind of strip is unsaleable, but his talent was
obvious, so Graabæk was encouraged to rework the
concept into a gag-a-day strip.

The result surpassed all expectations, and
Statsministeren became the most-sold Danish
newspaper strip since Alfredo and Naboens Helle.

Despite the many Danish additions, surely the most
important event for PIB in the ’80s was the securing of
sales rights from UFS and NEA. The two American
syndicates were merged under the name United
Media, which in 1985 licensed to PIB the rights to seil
their strips in Scandinavia and in the German-
speaking regions. PIB had functioned earlier as a sub-
agent for a Swedish company, or had gotten sales
rights through special deals, but with an overall
license in its pocket, the company could breathe
easier.

Bureaus and strips are bought and sold just like

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

1980’erne og 1990’erne medførte
fusioner og salg af rettigheder
ændringer i USAs tegneseriebranche.
Flere serier skiftede bureau, men
heldigvis har de skandinaviske
bureauer stort set alle den holdning,
at det aldrig må gå ud over kunderne.
Selv om flere serier pludselig skiftede
ejere, skete overgangen fra bureau til
bureau for det meste så
gnidningsløst, at kun avisernes
økonomiafdelinger opdagede, at der
var sket en ændring, når regningerne
nu kom fra et nyt sted.

Statsministeren
The Prime Minister

everything else, and both the 1980s
and 1990s brought mergers and sales
of rights in the American comic strip
industry. The rights to several strips
owned by other American bureaus
have been transferred from PIB to
other European bureaus, but luckily,
just about all of the Scandinavian
bureaus share the opinion that these
changes must never affect the
clients. Even though several strips
have suddenly changed owners, the
transfer from bureau to bureau is
carried out, for the most part, so
frictionless that only the newspapers’
accounting departments discover
that a change has taken place when
an invoice comes from a new place.

EN NY DAG TRUER

Alt skulle på den måde være i den skønneste orden,
men det var det alligevel ikke.

Antallet af aviser dalede kraftigt og kundegrundlaget
smuldrede, især for PIBs tekstfeatures. Det var derfor
ikke nogen let position Flemming Jørck befandt sig i,
da han i 1989 efter to år som underdirektør overtog
direktørstolen efter Plon, der gik på pension efter 25
år på PIB, men som dog bibeholdt kontakten til
firmaet ved at træde ind i bestyrelsen.

Jørck, der havde erfaring fra dagbladsbranchen efter
at have været salgsdirektør for Roskilde Tidende og
oplagschef i Politikens Hus, havde regnet med at
kunne koncentrere sig om salg af PIBs sortiment via
sit net af forbindelser til den nordiske bladverden.

I stedet måtte han bruge en stor del af sin tid på en

A NEW DAY TJHREATENS

In that way, everything should have been in the most
perfect order, but it was nevertheless not.

The number of newspapers decreased rapidly, and
the client base crumbled, especially for PIB’s text
features. It was therefore not an easy position
Flemming Jørck found himself in, when in 1989, after
two years as Deputy Director, he took over the
director’s chair from Plon, who retired after 25 years at
PIB, but who still maintained connections with the
company by joining the Board of Directors.

Jørck — who had experience in the daily newspaper
business after having been sales director for Roskilde
Tidende and Circulation Manager at Politiken — had
counted on being able to concentrate on the sales of
PIB’s catalogue through his network of connections to

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Bravo Tango af Per Sanderhage og den spanske tegner, Vand,
var en næsten surrealistisk action-serie. En af de 27 historier foregik
på et kunstmuseum, hvor kunstmalerne Henrik Pryds Beck og Jørgen
Nash leverede original kunst til striben.

Bravo Tango by Per Sanderhage and Spanish artist Vand was an
almost surreal action-strip. One ofits 27 stories took place at an art-
gallery, to which noted Danish painters Henrik Pryds Beck and Jørgen
Nash supplied original art for the strip.

større oprydning internt i firmaet, hvor tabsgivende
serier og arbejdsgange blev sorteret fra. Et enkelt år
var indtjeningen så lav, at medarbejderne måtte stille
8% af deres løn i bero.

Alle fik dog året efter beløbet udbetalt.

Samtidigt blev det mere og mere klart, at de tekniske
forhold på aviserne var ved at løbe fra seriebu-
reauerne. Aviserne stillede stadig større krav til
elektronisk levering, og Jørck var fast besluttet på, at
PIB ikke alene skulle kunne følge med, men helst også
være på forkant med udviklingen.

Det krævede mere end bare maskiner og nye folk.

En holdningsændring var påkrævet, og der blev
strammet op på en hel del. Jørck definerede sine

the Nordic magazine and newspaper industry.

Instead, he had to spend a great deal of his time on a
massive internal clean-up of the company, in which
money-losing strips and working methods were
separated out. In one year, profits were so low that the
employees had to accept suspension of 8% of their
wages.

Everyone got that money paid out the next year,
though.

At the same time, it become increasingly clear that
the technological conditions at the newspapers were
about to outdistance comics bureaus. The newspapers
set ever-increasing requirements for digital delivery,
and Jørck was firmly convinced that PIB should not
just follow after, but rather be in the forefront of that
development.

That required more than just machines and new
people. A change of attitude was demanded, and
much had to be tightened up. Jørck defined his
management style with the saying that “a good
director comes to work at 8:00 o’clock, leaves when
he’s 62, and uses the time in between to make sure

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

ledelsesprincipper efter devisen om, at “en god
direktør møder klokken otte, går når han er 62 og
bruger den mellemliggende periode til sikre, at i hvert
fald kunderne ikke er utilfredse.”

For at få mere plads, flyttede PIB fra Kultorvet til
Vimmelskaftet 41 i 1989, ikke mindst med henblik på
den forventede udvidelse med ny teknik.

Både af praktiske og økonomiske årsager skete det
dog ikke de første år. Flere medarbejdere gik på
pension. Man opgav at have særskilt redaktion for
tekst-features, og da Paul Schiøtt i 1993 forlod chefre-
daktørstolen for at arbejde som fuldtids-oversætter og
redaktør på Svikmøllen, var redaktionen nede på tre
personer, det laveste antal siden 1930’erne.

Til gengæld voksede den tekniske afdeling. Fra at
bestå af en reprofotograf og en tegnestuemedarbejder
kom afdelingen, efter indførelse af computere, hurtigt
op på fem medarbejdere med udstyr i en prisklasse
PIB ikke havde oplevet siden man havde egne trykke-
maskiner.

Indførelse af ny teknik går sjældent stille af, især da
det næsten altid indbefatter personale, der nok
kender til teknikken, men ikke til branchen. Efter en
ret livlig periode med mange udskiftninger af de nye
medarbejdere lykkedes det til sidst at headhunte
computerfolk fra forlagsbranchen som lettere kunne
sætte sig ind i, hvad PIB egentligt beskæftigede sig
med.

Det bør dog understreges, at de to medarbejdere fra
de “gamle” dage begge blev på PIB og indgik i den nye
afdeling.

Flvor meget de teknisk set konservative blandt
medarbejderne end bandede over den elektroniske
tidsalders indtrængen, måtte alle dog også erkende at
det var uundgåeligt.

Noget, som hjalp betydeligt for accepten af elektro-
nikken og til at betale for den, kom indirekte som
følge af en baseball-kamp i Boston.

that at least the customers are not dissatisfied.”

To get more space, PIB moved from Kultorvet to
Vimmelskaftet 41 in 1989, not the least because of the
expected technological developments.

But both for practical and financial reasons, that
didn't happen in the first few years. Several employees
retired. The company gave up maintaining a separate
editorial department for text features, and when in
1993, Paul Schiøtt resigned as Editor-in-Chief in order
to work as a full-time translator and editor for
Svikmøllen, the editorial department was down to
three people, the lowest number since the 1930s.

In return, the technical department grew. From
consisting of only a repro photographer and a pro-
duction artist, the introduction of computers meant
that the department quickly expanded to five
employees, with equipment at a price level that PIB
had not experienced since the company had its own
printing presses.

The introduction of new technology seldom comes
off quietly, especially because it nearly always includes
personnel who may well know the technology, but not
the business. After a very lively period with a lot of
turnover in the new employees, the company finally
succeeded in headhunting computer people from the
publishing business, who had an easier time
understanding what PIB actually was engaged in
doing.

It should be emphasized, though, that the two
employees from the “old” days both stayed at PIB and
were included in the new department.

No matter how much the conservative — from a
technological point of view — employees cursed the
digital era’s intrusion, everyone had to recognize that
it was unavoidable.

Something that considerably helped the acceptance
of digital technology, and helped pay for it, came as
an indirect result of a baseball game in Boston.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

STURT, STURT NUMMER

BIG NUMBERS

I 1990 ville to californiske ingeniører optage en vigtig
baseball-kamp på video. Imidlertid gik det galt, da de
programmerede videoen, og de fik aldrig set kampen.
Den oplevelse er nok velkendt for de fleste, men for
de to kinesisk- amerikanske videnskabsmænd, begge
med en doktorgrad i matematik, Henry C. Yuen og
Daniel Kwoh, var det på det nærmeste en personlig
fornærmelse.

En undersøgelse viste, at 80% af befolkningen
syntes, det var vanskeligt at programmere deres
videomaskiner, og Yuen og Kwoh satte sig ned for at
finde en løsning.

Ideen var at gøre det lige så let at indstille videoen
som at ringe fra en telefon. Et enkelt nummer skulle
fortælle maskinen kanal, dato, start- og afslutnings-
tidspunkt. Allerede samme år udviklede deres firma
Gemstar systemet under navnet VCR Plus+, i Europa
kendt som ShowView.

I begyndelsen måtte brugerne anskaffe en speciel
fjernbetjening, men i dag har næsten alle nye video-
optagere systemet indbygget.

Det var imidlertid ikke så let at overbevise aviser og
ugeblade om, at ShowView var en oplagt service at
tilbyde deres læsere.

Gemstar henvendte sig til United Media, hvor man
straks så mulighederne. PIB kom tidligt med og Jørck
rejste Tyskland, Østrig og Skandinavien tyndt for at
forklare systemet, tit sammen med Sid
Goldberg fra United Media og repræ-
sentanter for Gemstar.

Gennembruddet kom, da Bauer
Verlag i Tyskland i 1993 indførte
ShowView- numrene i deres TV-blade,
og i dag bringer stort set alle dag- og
ugeblade de praktiske numre.

In 1990, two California engineers wanted to video tape
an important baseball game. Unfortunately, it didn’t go
as planned when they programmed the VCR, and they
never got to see the game. That experience is probably
familiar to most people, but for the two Chinese-
American scientists, Henry Yuen and Daniel Kwoh —
both with doctoral degrees in applied mathematics
and physics — it was almost a personal insult.

A study showed that 80% of the population thought
it was difficult to program their VCRs, so Yuen and
Kwoh set to work to try to find a solution.

Their idea was to make it just as easy to program a
VCR as to make a call on a telephone. One single
number should tell the machine the channel, date,
and the start and end times. Already that same year,
their company Gemstar finished development of the
system, which they named VCR Plus+ — known in
Europe as ShowView.

In the beginning, users had to buy a special remote
control, but today nearly all the new VCRs have the
system built in.

However, it wasn’t so easy to convince newspapers
and weekly magazines that ShowView was an obvious
service to offer their readers.

Gemstar turned to United Media, who immediately
saw the possibilities. PIB got involved early and Jørck
traveled Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia thin

explaining the system, often together
with Sid Goldberg from United Media
and representatives from Gemstar.

The break-through came in 1993 when
Heinrich Bauer Verlag in Germany
introduced the ShowView numbers into
their publications, and today nearly all
daily and weekly newspapers and
magazines publish the useful numbers.

ShowView

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

SKIFTEDAGE

CHANGING DAYS

I marts 1994 døde Per Carlsen. Han havde efter salget
af forlagene og CC&O i 1980 været bestyrelses-
formand for PIB og derudover skrevet flere børne-
bøger og sine erindringer. Per Carlsen havde haft et
indgående kendskab til firmaet og af ærligt hjerte
elsket tegneserier, og tabet var føleligt.

Ved årsskiftet 1994/95 forlod Jørck direktørstolen for
at starte sit eget firma, men bevarede kontakten til
PIB som konsulent for ShowView-kontrakterne.

Han blev erstattet af Claes D. Voss, der havde en
fortid som journalist, generalsekretær i Dansk
Handikap -Idræts Forbund, direktør og cefredaktør for
Thomson Communications i Danmark og kommunika-
tionschef for R98. Den store udfordring for Voss var at
afslutte den overgang til elektronisk behandling af PIBs
materiale, som Jørck havde påbegyndt, og få genskabt
kampånden i firmaet.

Problemerne i forbindelse med den nye teknik
havde i nogen grad demoraliseret medarbejderne og
mange følte sig usikre på, hvilken rolle den nye besty-

Love while you’ve got
love to give.

Live while you've got
life to five.

PIB distribuerer også de
berømte Gruk af Piet Hein.
Her i engelsk version.

PIB also distributes the
famous “Grooks” by Piet
Hein.

In March, 1994, Per Carlsen died. He had, since the
sale of the publishing company and CC&O in 1980,
been Chairman of the Board of PIB, and in addition,
had written several children’s hooks and his memoirs.
Per Carlsen had an exhaustive knowledge of the
company, and had honestly loved comics. The loss
was felt.

At the change of the year 1994/1995, Jørck left the
Director’s chair to start his own company, but kept a
connection to PIB as a consultant on the ShowView
contract.

He was replaced by Claes Danneberg Voss, who had
a past as a journalist, General Secretary in Dansk
Handikap -Idræts Forbund [the Danish Handicap-
Sports Union], director at Thomson Communications
in Denmark, and Communications Manager at the
sanitation company R98. The big challenges for Voss
were finishing the transition to digital handling of
PIB’s material, which Jørck had set in motion, and
recreating a fighting spirit in the company.

The problems in connection with the new
technology had to some degree demoralized the
employees, and many felt unsure of which role the
new Board of Directors had in mind for PIB, after Per
Carlsen’s death.

It wasn’t uncomplicated. “You can’t open a closet in
these offices without a few skeletons rattling out,” Voss
sighed after a couple of months in the Director’s
Office.

As mentioned earlier, the company finally succeeded
in getting the technical department to function
satisfactorily, and the editor was asked to kindly stop
exclusively using occult terminology when mentioning
the technician’s computers.

Surprisingly enough, Petzi was a problem child. PIB
represented the original copyright holders, the Hansen

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

JfiV5/ SKYl/O O/d f
Pøi/r/æet/E-
S7R£2Mf/Z

Skæve Vinkler af Torben Osted
Skewed Angles by Torben Osted

PIB leverer også materiale til serieblade
med udvalgte avisstriber, der er populære i
Skandinavien, men et særsyn andre steder.

PIB also distributes material to comic books
with selected newpaper-comics. This kind
of comic books are very popular in
Scandinavia, but unusual elsewhere.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

relse havde tiltænkt PIB efter Per Carlsens død.

Ukompliceret var det ikke. “Man kan sgu ikke åbne
et skab her i huset uden der rasler et par skeletter
ud,” sukkede Voss hovedrystende efter et par
måneder i direktørkontoret.

Som før nævnt lykkedes det til sidst at få den
tekniske afdeling til at fungere tilfredsstillende og
redaktøren blev pålagt venligst at ophøre med
udelukkende at bruge okkult terminologi, når han
omtalte teknikkens computere.

Overraskende nok var et af smertensbørnene
Rasmus Klump. PIB repræsenterede de oprindelige
rettighedsindehavere, familien ffansen, men en del
rettigheder til merchandising og licensing var i tidens
løb havnet på flere hænder. Desuden blev forholdene
omkring produktionen af en række TV-tegnefilm
mere og mere vanskelige.

Det lykkedes Voss at få tilbagekaldt en del af rettig-
hederne og udvidet PIBs virkefelt med salg af
merchandising og licensing i Skandinavien på TV-
producenternes vegne. PIB havde siden 1960’erne
solgt forskellige licensrettigheder, primært af Rasmus
Klump, som bruges i markedsføringen af Sydbank,
Midtbank, Egnsbank Nord og Amagerbanken, men
også af andre serier, såsom Tintin.

Salget af 77«fm-licenser havde i øvrigt bragt PIB i
kontakt med musikbranchen i skikkelse af Johnny
Reimar. Den vågne entertainer og forretningsmand
havde bemærket, at ingen holdt øje med afgifterne for
plader med Tintin- hørespil. Johnny Reimar tilbød at
tage sig af sagen, og kontakten resulterede i et samar-
bejde på de både udskældte og populære Smølfe-
plader og senere med Rasmus Klump-shows.

Ejerforholdene på PIB havde ændret sig efter Per
Carlsens død og hans aktier var fordelt til forskellige
grene af familien.

Efter en del intern handel med aktierne i bestyrelsen

family, but a portion of the rights to merchandising
and licensing had over time landed in several hånds.

In addition, relations involving a series of animated
television cartoons were becoming more and more
difficult.

Voss succeeded in getting a portion of the rights
returned and expanded PIB’s sphere of operation with
the sale of merchandising and licensing in Scandinavia
in behalf of the TV producers. PIB had, since the 1960s,
sold various licensing rights. Primarily of Petzi, who is
used in the marketing campaigns of Sydbank,
Midtbank, Egnsbank Nord, and Amagerbanken, but
also of other comics, such as Tintin.

The sale of Tintin licenses had in addition brought
PIB into contact with the music business in the
person of Johnny Reimar. The alert entertainer and
businessman had noticed that no one kept an eye on
the expenses for records containing Tintin audio
plays. Reimar offered to take care of the chore, and
the contract resulted in a collaboration on both the
denigrated and profitable Smurf records, and later on
Petzi shows.

The ownership situation at PIB had changed after Per
Carlsen’s death, when his stock was divided among
various branches of the family.

After a number of internal stock dealings among the
members of the Board of Directors, PIB was bought by
Jørck’s company, Viking Media ApS. Subsequently Voss
and Sanderhage bought into the company and joined
the Board of Directors .

That resulted in much-needed peace on the job, and
PIB now had the time to better concentrate on the
foreign branches. For years, the company had had
problems with sales in Germany, and when ShowView
arrived, it needed to find a permanent employee. The
choice feli on Fred Kipka, who in the course of many
years had personally produced comics for the German

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

blev PIB slutteligt, købt af Jørcks firma Viking Media
ApS. Efterfølgende indtrådte Voss og Sanderhage i
såvel ejerskab som bestyrelse.

Det gav hårdt tiltrængt arbejdsro, og PIB fik nu tid til
bedre at kunne tage sig af de udenlandske afdelinger.
PIB har i årevis haft problemer med salget i Tyskland,
og da ShowView kom til, måtte man skaffe en fast
medarbejder. Valget faldt på Fred Kipka, der gennem
mange år selv havde produceret tegneserier til det
tyske marked, og som havde en grundig indsigt i den
tysksprogede bladverden.

PIBs finske repræsentant, Reijo Rouvinen, begyndte
med at sælge for PIB i Finland nærmest som en
bibeskæftigelse, men viste sig at være så effektiv, at
han nu koncentrerer sig fuldt ud om salgsarbejdet og
har udvidet sit område med de baltiske lande.

Igennem mange år havde PIB også en repræsentant
i Sverige, men i skrivende stund sker salget fra
kontoret i København. Der forventes dog snart igen at
blive oprettet en afdeling i Sverige og/ eller Norge.

Rasmus Klump fik en renæssance i forbindelse med
de 52 TV-episoder, der blev vist i Tysklands mest
populære børneprogram Die Sendung mit der Maus
og på DR1 i Danmark. Nu er der af tekniske årsager
nødvendigvis altid en forskel på, hvordan en figur ser
ud i en tegneserie og som animeret figur i en
tegnefilm, og det blev åbenlyst, at en skarpere kontrol
med hvordan figurerne så ud og hvilken forbindelse
de blev brugt, var påkrævet.

Til sidst tog man tyren ved hornene og fik lov til at
købe alle familien Flansens rettigheder, ikke kun til
Rasmus Klump, men også til Vilhelm Hansens utallige
nisse- og dyretegninger, så rettighederne nu er samlet
hos PIB.

Tiden var i det hele taget inde til at konsolidere
firmaet, og da nabokontorerne blev sat til salg, købte
PIB de 384 ledige kvadratmeter og flyttede i 1999 fra
baghuset ud til Strøget.

market, and who had a thorough knowledge of the
German-speaking magazine industry.

PIB’s Finnish representative, Reijo Rouvinen, started
selling for PIB in Finland almost as a second job, but
proved himself to be so effective that he now
concentrated fully on sales work, and expanded his
territory to include the Baltic countries.

During many years, PIB also had a representative in
Sweden, but in the literal sense, the Swedish sales
were made out of the office in Copenhagen. However,
it is expected that there will soon be branch offices
established again in Sweden and/or Norway.

Petzi got a renaissance in connection with the 52 TV
episodes that were shown in Germany’s most popular
children’s show, Die Sendung mit der Maus [The Show
with the Mouse] , and on DR1 in Denmark. Now, for
technical reasons, there is necessarily always a
difference in how a character looks in a comic strip
and in an animated cartoon, but it became apparent
that a stricter control over the character design and in

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Peter Heydenreichs seneste serie, satirestriben EU- Kommissæren
The latest satirical strip by Peter Heydenreich, The Commissioner

FRA RÆV TIL VAGTH UN D

Set i virksomhedshistorisk lys ligner PIB på mange
måder mange andre firmaer, der for at overleve har
ændret kurs alt efter, hvordan forholdene har udviklet
sig.

PIB startede som en bibeskæftigelse for et firma, der
beskæftigede sig med teknik, på samme måde som
mange forlag er startet af bogtrykkere. Når man har
teknikken, hvorfor så ikke udnytte den til at fremstille
egne produkter i stedet for kun at fungere som
leverandør? I PIBs tilfælde drejede det sig om
pressestof.

Sjovt nok begyndte den del af aktiviterne ved at man
gjorde lige akkurat det, som firmaet nu 100 år senere i
høj grad beskæftiger sig med at forhindre... at nogen
bruger andres ejendom uden at betale for det.

Hjalmar Carlsen tog uden videre (i fuld overens-
stemmelse med datidens love og tidens skik og brug)
andres illustrationer og romaner og solgte dem uden
at ophavsmændene fik betaling.

Men med Berner-konventionen blev ophavsretten
slået fast, og PIBs nok væsentligste funktion i dag er
indædt at forsvare rettighedsindehavernes interesser,
det være sig en tegners eller et multinationalt firmas.

which connection it is used was required.

Finally, PIB took the buil by the horns and simply
bought all the Hansen family’s rights, not just to Petzi,
but also to Vilhelm Hansen’s countless Christmas-elf
and animal drawings, so the rights are now
Consolidated at PIB.

On the whole, the time had come to consolidate the
company and when the neighboring offices were put
up for sale, PIB bought the 384 vacant square meters
and moved in 1999 out of the back offices and onto
the Copenhagen main Street, Strøget.

FROM FOX TO WATCHDOG

Seen in a business-history light, PIB resembles in so
many ways many other companies, which to survive
have had to change course sharply depending on how
business conditions have developed.

PIB started as a sideline for a company that
occupied itself with technology, in the same way that
many publishing companies were started by book
printers. When you have the technology, why not
exploit it to produce your own product instead of
operating only as a supplier? In PIB’s case, it all
revolved around press material.

Funnily enough, that part of the company’s business
started out doing exactly what the company 100 years
later spends a great amount of time trying to prevent
— the use of other people’s property without paying
for it.

Hjalmar Carlsen took without further ado (in full
adherence to the law and that time’s customs) others’
ideas and illustrations and novels, and sold them
without paying the copyright holder.

But with the Bern Convention, the copyright laws
were clearly spelled out, and probably PIB’s most
important function today is to fiercely defend the

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Hvad ophavsret angår, har firmaet altså vendt 180
grader igennem sin historie. Til gengæld synes udvik-
lingen med hensyn til teknik at vende tilbage til
udgangspunktet. PIB skaffede sine første kunder ved
at gøre det lettere og økonomisk forsvarligt at bruge
pressemateriale udefra. Den del blev i den sidste
halvdel af århundredet mindre og mindre væsentligt,
efterhånden som aviser og magasiner fik mere og
mere avancerede maskiner, og PIBs tekniske afdeling
forsvandt stort set i 1980’erne.

Nu har den tekniske udvikling via internettet og
computere ændret situationen, så det for alle parter
igen er interessant at få færdigt materiale fra PIB, lige
til at sætte ind på siden. Teknikken udgør så igen den
største afdeling på PIB, mens den del af firmaet, der
skrev, oversatte og tegnede materiale, nærmest er
forsvundet og erstattet med free-lance medarbejdere,
som via internettet har direkte adgang til hovedkon-
toret.

En medarbejder fra firmaets start ville måske nok
være forbløffet over, hvordan firmaet ser ud i dag,
men ikke have problemer med at forstå, hvad man
beskæftigede sig med.

interests of the copyright holders, whether they be
cartoonists or multinational corporations.

Where copyright is concerned, the company has
therefore turned itself around 180 degrees during its
existence. In return, the development in connection
with technology is thought to have returned to its
starting point. PIB got its first clients by making it
easier and economically defensible for them to use
press material from outside sources. In the last half of
this century, that part of the business has become less
and less important — decreasing in pace with
newspapers and magazines buying progressively more
advanced machinery — and that PIB’s technical
department largely disappeared in the 1980s.

Now the technological development of the internet
and computers has changed the situation, so that for
all parties it has again become interesting to get
finished material from PIB, ready to put into place on
a page. So the largest department at PIB is once again
devoted to technology, while that part of the company
that wrote, translated, and drew material has almost
disappeared and been replaced with freelance
contributors, who via the internet have direct access
to the company ’s headquarters.

An employee from the company’s beginnings will
probably be amazed over the way PIB looks today, but
would not have any problems understanding what it
occupies itself with doing.

Tom Wilsons populære panel-serie, Ziggy
Tom Wilson’s popular panel, Ziggy

72

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

HVAD BETYDER PIB COPENHAGEN
EGENTLIG FOR ANDRE?

Det ville være dejligt at kunne skrive, at PIB har haft
en afgørende betydning for den internationale presse
gennem sin 100 års levetid.

Man skal imidlertid være varsom med at pynte sig
med lånte fjer. Pressens rolle i samfundet er infor-
mation, debat og meningsdannelse, og selv om folk
på PIB naturligvis har haft deres politiske holdninger,
har det altid været princippet ikke at prøve at luske
dem ind i, hvad vi i tidens løb har tilbudt vores
kunder.

Det skal dog indrømmes, at materiale med ekstreme
synspunkter (hvorved forstås, alt hvad den til enhver
tid siddende ledelse og redaktion er lodret uenige i)
bliver høfligt afvist.

PIB Copenhagen er et servicefirma for pressen. Ikke
mere, men heller ikke mindre, og som et sådant HAR
firmaet en væsentlig funktion.

Hjalmar Carlsens PIB hjalp mindre aviser med at
tage kampen op mod de store dagblade ved at gøre
det muligt at bringe fotos, illustrationer og artikler,
som det ellers af økonomiske årsager ville være
umuligt for dem at benytte.

Selv om mange små dagblade er bukket under, hjalp
PIB dem til en længere levetid og tilsvarende længere
indflydelse i samfundet.

Forfattere, illustratorer og serietegnere er gennem
PIB nået ud til en langt større læserskare, end hvis de
selv havde måttet stå for salg, teknik, distribution og
regnskab. Uden PIB ville en lang række fremragende
serier aldrig være nået længere end skrivebords-
skuffen.

PIB havde og har sin plads i den evigt skiftende,
altid udfordrende verden, der kaldes pressen.

Og det regner vi klart med at fortsætte med at
have... også de næste 100 år.

WH AT DOES PIB COPENHAGEN REALLY
MEANTO OTHERS?

It would be nice to be able to write that PIB has had a
decisive meaning for the international press during its
100-year life.

But one should not decorate oneself with borrowed
medals. The press’ role in society is information, de-
bate, and the shaping of public opinion, and even
though people at PIB naturally have had their own
political convictions, it has always been a policy not to
try to sneak them into what we in the course of time
have offered our clients.

It has to be admitted, though, that material with ex-
tremist viewpoints (hereby understood to be every-
thing that to any time’s current management and edit-
orial are downright in opposition to) is politely refused.

PIB Copenhagen is a service company for the press
— no more, but preferably no less. And as such, the
company has had an essential function.

Hjalmar Carlsen’s PIB helped smaller newspapers
take up the fight with the large dailies by making it
possible for them to publish photos, illustrations, and
articles, which for financial reasons would otherwise
have been impossible for them to use.

Even though rnany small dailies have folded, PIB
helped them have a longer lifespan and a
correspondingly longer influence in society.

Writers, illustrators, and cartoonists have through
PIB reached a far greater readership than if they
themselves had had to handle sales, technology,
distribution, and accounting. Without PIB, a long line
of excellent strips would never have made it further
than a desk drawer.

PIB had and still has its place in the ever-changing,
always-challenging industry that’s called the press.

And we definitely count on continuing to have it —
also in the next 100 years.

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

EFTERORD

I forbindelse med 100 års jubilæet blev de to tidligere
administrerende direktører for PIB, Philipp Plon og
Flemming Jørck, bedt om at fortælle lidt om deres tid
i firmaet.

ET KVART ÅRHUNDREDE I PIB

Da jeg i 1964 sad som leder af Grafisk Forlag, ringede
Per Carlsen mig en dag op og bad mig komme over
på hans kontor i Købmagergade 9. Jeg kendte i
forvejen Per fra Dansk Forlæggerforening som
direktør for Illustrationsforlaget, der udgav et væld af
gode børnebøger.

Over en kop kaffe spurgte han mig direkte, om jeg
kunne tænke mig at blive leder af PIB. Jeg sagde
nærmest for sjov, at det kunne jeg da godt, men -
“hvad er PIB?”. Som de fleste andre havde jeg aldrig
lagt mærke til de tre bogstaver, som man kunne finde
i så godt som alle danske aviser, særlig i tegneserier.

Jeg fik en kort beskrivelse af, hvad firmaet beskæfti-
gede sig med, og Per forklarede, at PIB var moderfirma-
et for både forlaget og pressebureauet. Han følte, at det
var blevet for meget for ham at lede begge virksom-
heder og bad mig om at overtage ledelsen af bureauet.

Selv om jeg aldrig havde interesseret mig for
tegneserier, kunne jeg godt se, at der måtte være et
stort marked. Radiserne kendte jeg da i det mindste,
og Per lod mig forstå, at han forventede, at jeg ville
være i stand til at udvide vore tilbud til alverdens
aviser og blade med andet end tegneserier i lighed
med de krydsord, bridge- og skakopgaver, modestof
og andre ting, PIB havde i forvejen. I min tid
lykkedes det at udvide tilbudet med lægestof af Lasse
Hessel, Zoologisk Snak af den senere direktør for
Zoologisk Have, Bent Jørgensen og meget andet - alt
naturligvis illustreret.

AFTE RWORDS

In connection with PIB’s lOOth anniversary, two
former managing directors of PIB were asked to tell a
little about their time in the company.

A QUARTER CENTURY AT^PIB

When I, in 1964, was in charge of Grafisk Forlag, Per
Carlsen called me up one day and asked me to come
over to his office in Købmagergade 9. 1 already knew
Per from the Danish Publishers Association, as
Director for Illustrationsforlaget, where he published a
wealth of good children’s books.

Over a cup of coffee, he asked me directly if I would
consider becoming the leader of PIB. I said almost as
a joke that I certainly would, but “What’s PIB?” Just
like most other people, I had never noticed the three
initials, which could be found in just about all Danish
newspapers, especially in the comic strips.

I got a brief run-down of what the company worked
on, and Per explained that PIB was the mother
company of both the publisher and the press bureau.
He felt that it had become too much for him to
manage both divisions, and asked me to take over
leadership of the bureau.

Even though I had never been particularly interested
in comic strips, I could easily see that there had to be
a large market for them. At least I knew Peanuts, and
Per made it clear to me that he expected Fd be able to
expand our catalogue of offerings to the world’s
newspapers and magazines with something other
than comic strips. Something along the lines of the
crossword puzzles, bridge and chess activities, fashion
features, and the other things PIB already offered. In
my time, we succeeded in expanding the catalogue
with medical features by Lasse Hessel, “Zoo Talk” by

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Efter en kort betænkningstid slog jeg til -
og det blev de bedste 25 år i mit arbejdsliv.

Der var ikke een morgen, hvor jeg ikke
glædede mig til at tage på arbejde. Jeg havde
verdens bedste medarbejdere, og hvis jeg
skal fremhæve nogle, så må det være Kirsten
Bang, som var en dygtig redaktør, Jørgen
Sonnergaard, som var en glimrende
oversætter og skribent, Birthe Grønlund, som
ledede bogholderiet - både før jeg tiltrådte og
efter min fratræden - og gør det stadigvæk
uden man kan sætte en finger på noget, Paul Schiøtt,
som også var en fremragende oversætter, Per
Sanderhage, som er en virkelig god tegner og
Flemming Jørck, som blev ansat to år før min
fratræden og overtog kommandoen i firmaet på mit
25 års jubilæum. Jeg kunne nævne alle de øvrige
medarbejdere, der har været med til, at PIB gik
utroligt frem i de 25 år, jeg fik lov at lede firmaet.

Da pressebureauet i 1980 blev selvstændigt -
forlaget blev solgt til Bonnier - tilbød Per Carlsen mig
en andel i det nye kommanditselskab. Det blev jeg
meget glad for, men ønskede, at alle medarbejdere fik
tilbud en andel. Per accepterede og langt de fleste
medarbejdere blev medejere.

For nogle år siden solgte jeg min andel i PIB, som
senere fik nye ejere. Jeg er glad og taknemmelig for, at
jeg stadig bliver modtaget pænt af mine gamle
medarbejdere, når jeg af og til besøger min gamle
arbejdsplads.

Philipp Plon
Direktør 1964 -1989

the later director of the Copenhagen Zoo,
Bent Jørgensen, and much else — all
illustrated, of course.

After a short time spent thinking it over, I
accepted — and it became the best 25 years
of my working life. There wasn’t one single
morning when I wasn’t looking forward to
going to work. I had the world’s best
employees, and if I have to single some out,
they would have to be Kirsten Bang, who
was a skilied editor; Jørgen Sonnergaard,
who was an excellent translator and writer; Birthe
Grønlund, who was in charge of accounting, both
before I arrived and after I left — and who still
manages it flawlessly; Paul Schiøtt, who was also a
brilliant translator; Per Sanderhage, who is a really
good cartoonist; and Flemming Jørck, who was hired
two years before I retired, and who took over
command of the company on my 25th anniversary. I
could also mention all the other employees who have
contributed to PIB making incredible advances in the
25 years I was allowed to lead the company.

When the press bureau became independent in 1980
— the publishing company was sold to Bonnier — Per
Carlsen offered me shares in the new limited
partnership. That made me very happy, but I desired
that all the employees were also offered shares. Per
accepted and most of the employees became co-
owners.

Several years ago, I sold my shares in PIB, which
later got new owners. I’m happy and thankful that I
still am well-received by my former colleagues when I,
every once in a while, visit my old work place.

Philipp Plon
Managing Director 1964-1989

Philipp Plon

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

SIKRERE FODFÆSTE OG
NY TEKNOLOGI

Da jeg tiltrådte som direktør i 1989, var faldet i antal
af dagblade allerede begyndt - og kort efter krakkede
en stor svensk bladgruppe. Tilmed faldt den svenske
krone samtidig med 16%, hvilket ramte PIB hårdt.

Da det kunne forudses, at sammenlægninger af
aviser og bladlukninger ville blive en del af daglig-
dagen, stod det klart, at vi snarest måtte finde mindst
én indtægtskilde mere udover syndikering af tegne-
serier og tekstfeatures.

Mange ideer blev vendt med medarbejderne og
bestyrelsen, men inden der var udkrystalliseret
brugbare muligheder, kom United Media (PIBs
hovedagenturgiver) med et nyt produkt, ShowView.
Det var et både spændende og godt forretnings-
område, men i begyndelsen også meget arbejds-
krævende.

Der gik 2 1/2 år, fra PIB første gang hørte om
ShowView, til den første betydende ordre var hjemme.
Det havde krævet meget salgsarbejde og mange
udlandsrejser - der er langt fra Schweiz til Helsingfors.

Det var nyt for PIB at skulle beskæftige sig med TV-
og videoteknologi, især da udbuddet af TV- kanaler i
Europa steg voldsomt netop i disse år. På PIBs tradi-
tionelle markedsområder er der selvfølgelig også
forskelle fra land til land, men ikke så store som
inden for TV-programmer, bladtypernes indbyrdes
konkurrenceforhold og markedsandele, samt de
enkelte blades meget forskellige syn på vigtigheden af
TV-programmer.

Merchandising - d.v.s. udnyttelse af kendte figurer
på produkter og til markedsføringsformål - voksede
også i denne periode. Det krævede naturligvis, at PIB
havde disse rettigheder. Mange agenturgivere opdeler
udnyttelsen af deres rettigheder i syndikeringsretttig-
heder og licensrettigheder og mister derved oplagte

SURER FOOTING AND NEW
TECHNOLOGY

When I took over as Managing Director in 1989, the
decline in the number of daily newspapers had
already begun — and shortly afterwards, a large
Swedish publishing group went bankrupt. In addition,
the Swedish crown feli 16% at the same time, which
hit PIB hard.

Because it could be predicted that mergers of some
newspapers and closures of others would become a
part of everyday life, it was clear that we had to find at
least one additional source of income as soon as
possible, to supplement syndication of comic strips
and text features.

Many ideas were explored with the employees and
the Board of Directors, but before one usable
possibility was crystalized, United Media (PIB’s main
source of sales rights) came to us with a new product,
ShowView. It was in both an exciting and profitable
business area, but in the beginning it was also very
labor intensive.

Two-and-a-half years passed from when PIB first
heard of ShowView until the first significant order was
received. It had required a lot of sales work, and many
foreign business trips — it’s a long way from
Switzerland to Helsingfors.

It was new for PIB to keep busy with TV and video
technology, especially since the choice of TV channels
in Europe rose violently in precisely those years. There
are, of course, differences from country to country
within PIB’s traditional marketing areas; but the
differences are not near as great as those between TV
programs, the various types of publications’ in-built
competition and market shares, and the individual
publications’ very different opinions about the
importance of TV

Merchandising — that is, the exploitation of well-

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

synergieffekter. For PIB var, og er, rettighederne til
Rasmus Klump væsentlige, især efter en TV-filmkon-
trakt blev indgået med Cologne Cartoon i 1993.

Et vigtigt skridt var en ændring af selskabsformen.
Efter mange og lange overtalelsesforsøg over for
familien Carlsen, lykkedes det at få ændret “k/s
presse-illustrations-bureau” til “PIB Copenhagen
A/S”. Den ændrede selskabsform gjorde det muligt at
spare overskud op til større investeringer uden
beskatning af ejerne.

Dermed var grundlaget dannet for indførelsen af
en fuldt moderne, digitaliseret produktion og forsen-
delse af PIBs materiale. I sandhedens tjeneste skal det
dog siges, at denne udvikling ikke var initeret af PIB
selv, men var et krav fra kunderne, som et led i deres
egen teknologiske udvikling.

Da jeg begyndte på PIB, betragtede jeg firmaet som
en meget specialiseret virksomhed. Det er det på sin
vis også, men jeg opdagede hurtigt, at der var et
forbløffende stort antal meget forskellige funktioner
og arbejdsområder involveret.

Jeg var derfor helt på linie med Per Sanderhage, da
han, ved et tilbud om at få titel af chefredaktør, tørt
svarede, at titlen “over-jonglør” nok dækkede bedre.

PIB har altid haft mange bolde i luften. Det er en
spændende arbejdsplads med mange udfordringer, og
jeg er glad for at have bevaret kontakten med firmaet.

Flemming Jørck
Underdirektør 1987 - 1989
Direktør 1989 - 1995

known characters’ likenesses on products and in
marketing campaigns — also grew in this period.
Naturally, it was a prerequisite that PIB had these
rights. Many copyright holders divide up their rights
into syndication rights and licensing rights, and
thereby miss out on the obvious synergy effects. For
PIB, the rights to Petzi were and are important,
especially after a contract for animated TV episodes
was signed with Cologne Cartoon in 1993.

An important step forward was the change in the
official structure of the company. After many long
attempts to persuade the Carlsen family, agreement
was reached to change “kl s presse-illustrations-bureau”
to “PIB Copenhagen A/S. That changed structure made
it possible to save up profits for larger investments
without subjecting the owners to taxes on them.

With that, the foundation was laid for the
introduction of a fully modern, digitalized production
and delivery of PIB’s material. The truth be told, it has
to be said that this development was not initiated by
PIB itself, but was a demand from the clients as a link
in their own technological development.

When I started at PIB, I considered the company to
be a very specialized operation. It is that, in its own
way, but I quickly discovered that there were an
amazingly large number of very different functions
and types of work involved.

I was therefore totally in agreement with Per
Sanderhage, when on being offered the title of
“Editor-in-Chief,” he dryly answered that the title
“Chief Juggler” probably covered his duties better.

PIB has always had many halls in the air. It is an
exciting work place with a lot of challenges, and I’m
happy to have maintained a connection to the
company.

Flemming Jørck
Deputy Director 1987-1989
Managing Director 1989-1995

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Rebecca Løwe
Red. koordinator
Editorial coordinator

Sabine Vang

Korrespondent

Correspondent

Flemming Jørck

Bestyrelsesformand

Chairman-of-the-board

Jean Hamilton
Receptionist/ salgsassistent
Receptionist/sales assistant

Per Sanderhage

Redaktør

Editor

Pia Hansen

Receptionist/salgsassistent
Receptionist/sales assistant

79

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Birgit Rosenø
DTP /produktion
DTP/production

Flemming Nielsen
Ekspeditionschef
Shipping chief

Sten Rasmussen
DTP /produktion
DTP/production

Leif Kristensen

Ekspedition

Mailroom

Kristian Jakobsen
DTP /produktion
DTP/production

Martin Stender
Produktionschef
Production manager

Thomas Andersen
DTP /produktion
DTP/production

80

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Reijo Rouvinen
Salgschef/PIB Finland
Sales manager/PIB Finland

Birthe Grønlund

Bogholder

Bookkeeper

Fred Kipka

Salgschef/PIB Tyskland
Sales manager/PIB Germany

Giinther Dunst
Salgsassistent/ PIB Tyskland
Sales assistant/PIB Germany

Heike Schmeling
Salgsassistent/ PIB Tyskland
Sales assistant/PIB Germany

81

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

TIL LYKKE MED DE
FØRSTE 100 ÅR.

OG TAK FOR 20 ÅRS
GODT SAMARBEJDE.

ØNSKES I AF

STEN LAURITZEN OG JYTTE RASMUSSEN

INPACT

Memeer of International Nctwoek
or Professional Accolntants

Revisionsfirmaet S.A. Christensen & W. Kjærulff • St. Kongensgade 68 • 1264 Kbh K • 33 30 15 15

83

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

EGMONT
wishes PIB Copenhagen
a happy anniversary.

It takes something special
to stay alive in this business
for 100 years.

We look forward to an
even doser co-operation
in the years to come.

84

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

MIG OG MIM MOR, CARLA HAMSEM, erMSKER PIB TIL LrøE MED
f«rt>SELSDAG£M, TA(c WR so ÅRS GODT SAMARBEJDE,

OG fORDI I MU PASSER GODT PÅ RASMUS KLUMP.

85

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

Danmark har

en bank, som gør

erhvervslivet

lidt lettere at leve

Mere end De regner med

86

PIB COPENHAGEN • 100

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PIB COPENHAGEN • 100